Talk Info
Anna-Louise Pickering is a writer, photographer and conservationist, who has dedicated her life to the welfare of endangered, sick and vulnerable creatures
For over 25 years Anna-Louise worked alongside her late mother Pollyanna as her business partner. Pollyanna was passionate about only painting animals she had seen and sketched in their natural habitats, a quest which lead to her painting on all seven continents. Anna-Louise accompanied her on every journey, documenting the journeys photographically, and writing the text for their popular books. She has travelled by dog sled in the High Arctic, camping on the ice at temperatures of -40, canoed through crocodile infested rivers, and been charged by a wild tiger in search of her subjects.
She is now pleased to present a series of talks about her life and work with Pollyanna, their expeditions to find endangered species in some of the most remote areas of the globe and their close contact with wildlife which inspired Pollyanna’s enchanting artwork.
All talks raise funds for Pollyanna’s charitable Foundation which supports international conservation and wildlife rescue. All the talks are illustrated.
New! Inspired By Nature
This lavishly illustrated talk will bring a new understanding of the inspiration behind Pollyanna’s award-winning paintings.
Anna-Louise takes a look at Pollyanna’s remarkable career as one of the world’s most highly renowned wildlife artists, sharing stories of the wildlife which inspired her, and the trials and tribulations of her global expeditions to study endangered species in their natural habits. This charming account of their travels will open your eyes to the beauty that surrounds us, and which Pollyanna captured with unparalleled realism and vitality in her artwork.
The talk also takes a look at the work of the Pollyanna Pickering Foundation, including the heart warming stories of some of the individual animals which they continue to support, and some of the some of the latest conservation projects which continue Pollyanna’s remarkable legacy.
NEW! Travels with a Wildlife Artist
From being presented with an orphaned bear cub as a gift on her 21st birthday to being charged by a komodo dragon, for Anna-Louise life working alongside Pollyanna was never dull.
In this light hearted talk she tells new stories of life and work alongside Pollyanna from her perspective. Not many careers involve requests to organise expeditions to Ethiopia to search for the world’s rarest wolf, or to take a bucket of live toads to a TV studio.
But equally few provide the opportunities to bottle feed an orphaned six month old baby panda bear or to photograph wild jaguars from a boat in the wilds of Brazil.
Find out why Anna-Louise says being the assistant to a wildlife artist is the best job in the world…
“The audience were mesmerised as huge pictures taken during the expeditions were projected onto the screen…….. Pollyanna’s daughter is an excellent public speaker” (Nottingham Post)
A Brush with Wildlife
Pollyanna’s work as a wildlife artist always brought her into close contact with real birds and animals (left). Alongside Anna-Louise, for fifteen years she ran a small sanctuary at her home to care for and rehabilitate injured wildlife. It was initially intended that she would care for owls, hawks, and falcons, but over the years she looked after many other birds and animals including foxes, squirrels and hedgehogs.
In A Brush with Wildlife Anna-Louise takes a light-hearted look at their life and work in the beautiful Peak District of Derbyshire. This talk tells the heart warming and often amusing stories of just a few of the many hundreds of creatures that passed through their care, and of course shows a selection of the sketches and paintings for which Pollyanna was so renowned.
‘Fascinating and warm-heated… Lavishly illustrated… this talk describes with touching clarity how Pollyanna was able to draw on these experiences to develop her artistic talent.’
Countryside magazine
Giant Pandas and Sleeping Dragons
This talk tells the story of Pollyanna’s most famous and remarkable journey into China to study and paint Giant Pandas (left).
Accompanied by Anna-Louise, she travelled into one of the remotest areas of the Tibetan Borderlands in her quest to paint one of the most iconic and elusive of all animals. The two became the first western women ever to travel into an isolated mountain reserve, where they were lucky enough to be able to work in a small hospital for sick pandas, bringing them into remarkably close contact with one of the rarest animals on earth.
This enchanting talk tells the story of their journey – from the hardships and frustrations to the lasting friendships made in this enigmatic and beautiful country, and shows the spectacular award-winning paintings which resulted from the trip.
A lavishly illustrated book about the trip has been published – and Anna-Louise was honoured to be a finalist in Cosmopolitan’s Woman of the Achievement Awards for her writing and photography.
“An unforgettable and perhaps unrepeatable journey exploring a different culture and a different land. Pollyanna and Anna-Louise have illuminatingly shown us that if we love the panda as much as we say we do, we must allow it to be itself and live as nature intended” (Virginia McKenna, Actress and founder of the Born Free Foundation)
NEW! The Art of Saving Lions
Anna-Louise is committed to continuing the work of the Pollyanna Pickering Foundation.
The lion is synonymous with wild Africa. Yet few realize the species has undergone a catastrophic decline, from as many as 200,000 wild lions in Africa a century ago to about 20,000 today. Pollyanna was passionate about protecting these iconic big cats, and through a series of exhibitions her Foundation raised money to co-fund the building of lion proof enclosures in Kenya, in partnership with the Born Free Foundation, of which she was a longstanding patron.
The enclosures are a simple, cost effective approach to protecting livestock from predation at night. When cattle and other livestock are protected from lions, the Masai do not need to kill the lions to protect their livelihood.
Anna-Louise travelled out to Kenya with Born Free President Will Travers to help build some of these vital structures! Join her as she celebrates Pollyanna’s work with lions culminating in her visit to the project in Africa – and tells the story of a very special cub.
The Eye of the Tiger
This talk about Pollyanna and Anna-Louise’s second expedition into India tells the story of their travels into the foothills of the Himalayas in the North where Pollyanna painted the increasingly endangered Royal Bengal Tiger.
Here they stayed and worked with anti-poaching rangers in the heart of a project tiger reserve. In order for Pollyanna to see and sketch her subjects first hand she was bounced, jolted, cut, bruised, scratched stung and bitten – and even charged by a wild tiger.
“I have had one or two scary moments over the years of travelling to paint endangered species” Pollyanna commented “but I have never experienced a fear like looking into the eyes of a snarling wild tiger from a distance of four feet.”
“The slide show had superb photography, the talk had an exciting story line and it just held everybody spellbound” (Leicester Mercury)
Here Be Dragons….
On this expedition Anna-Louise came face to face with one of the most potentially dangerous creatures she has ever studied – armed only with a stick.
Join her as she travels alongside Pollyanna by river boat deep into the rainforests in the southern tip of Borneo, on a pilgrimage to Camp Leakey. Here they trekked into the forests to visit the rehabilitation centres where many of the orang-utans who have been released back in to the wild visit feeding platforms. There is nowhere else in the world you can see so many wild orang-utans in their natural home – and Pollyanna made the most of this opportunity to fill her sketch folders.
Whilst in Indonesia they also visited Komodo, home to the legendary komodo dragons, trekking in the National Park, in temperatures which reached 43ºC in order to come face to face with the world’s largest and most dangerous lizards in their natural habitat
This humorous and beautifully illustrated account of her travels brings vividly to life one of the remotest and least visited wilderness areas remaining on earth – and shows the inspiration behind Pollyanna’s remarkable paintings.