The Beautiful Animal Art of Faye Halliday 

Faye Halliday truly has my dream job… Travelling the world and drawing. Life doesn’t get any better than that!

The British artist and adventure junkie was inspired to create these stunning series of drawings after seeing an elephant beautifully decorated for a festival in Jaiper, India. The series is titled ‘Haathi’, which means Elephant in Hindi.

Faye says “I’ve always been inspired by beauty. Never on a superficial level, but more so as a concept; an interpretation and what it means to different people. What constitutes “beauty”? And why does it have such an overwhelming power over us?”

You can see more at: Fayehalliday.com | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter.

If I ask and I really mean it, when the sun goes down at the end of the day, it takes all of my worries from the day along with it. As it disappears below the horizon, I imagine them burning away, flickering into nothing in amongst all of its light while I sleep, before coming up at sunrise with the promise of a brand new day ? Edit: Thank you for all of the kind words and support. After looking at the comments I have to note this wasn’t physically cut out, the photo has been edited to include the background. The detail was too intense to cut it out and still create the image the way I imagined it. I hope this doesn’t ruin the experience for you. A lot of heart, thought and effort was still put into making this happen ❤

A post shared by ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Faye Halliday (@fayehallidayart) on Jun 13, 2017 at 11:57am PDT

If you were granted one whole day as an adult when you were a kid, able to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, what would you have done with it? ? I’ve just spent the day in the forest climbing trees and visiting my local garden centre, two things I used to love doing as a kid. The garden centre used to have this huge pirate ship for us to play in while the adults had lunch, with all sorts of holes, ladders and slides scattered across the deck. I remember climbing up to the lookout and feeling like I was on top of the world, big and brave for making it all the way to the top. I’m sure I’d look at it now and realise how tiny it was haha, but back then that thing may as well have been a real life pirate ship. All I wanted was to be grown up and now I miss the magic of being a child. I haven’t figured out the answer to my own question yet, but I do know I’d love to dedicate a day to doing whatever it is when I do

A post shared by ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Faye Halliday (@fayehallidayart) on Jun 7, 2017 at 1:57pm PDT

After years and years of delving into the spectrum of greys and 3D dance from black to white, here I am at 25 years old with little to no experience with colour. So I’ve gone back to square one, back to being a student, back to being an amateur and decided to start what I know will be a very long journey. After practicing one thing so avidly for so long, I know the amount of work I have ahead of me and it’s terrifying. I observe my mind and it wants to rush. It looks for the fastest way of getting from A to B, from amateur to pro. Flooding me with questions like “Where. Do. I. Start?!” I think back to one of Lao Tzu’s quotes I have hanging back in my studio in England, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. I breath, release and relax as I allow another one of his well-known messages to come through, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished”. Which begs the question, why is this something I’d want to rush anyway? And in that moment I open my eyes to what will be a great love affair with colour. A great, great love affair I want to savour every moment of, with each of the different stages of our relationship having their own gorgeous aspects to enjoy. From the excitement and mystery of our first date right the way through to the deepest depths of knowing and loving in our old age. So in these backdrop pieces, you see me enjoying our first stages. I’m making my move. Using a wingman to make an introduction and bridge the gap between my work and Colour’s. The original creative expression, the original source of colour inspiration… Nature, showing me how it’s done. Until the time comes to pick up a paintbrush and take things to the next level. But until then, I’m in no rush 🙂 Thank you for sharing this journey with me… P.S. Apologies for my absence, I’ve been taking some time out from technology. I’ve missed you! And the same applies to any journey you might be too scared to start too… Embracing all of the stages… Including the inevitable feelings of fear in our first steps.

A post shared by ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Faye Halliday (@fayehallidayart) on May 23, 2017 at 1:17pm PDT

Good morning from Lake Atitlán, Guatemala! ? Spending the morning playing my gorgeously meditative freezbee @guda_drum on the dock (trying to upload it onto my story as we speak but the internet here kinda sucks!) www.guda-drum.com if you’re into getting your own, by the way. Hope you’re all having the most beautiful week ?

A post shared by ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Faye Halliday (@fayehallidayart) on Apr 19, 2017 at 10:16am PDT

? FAILURES ? If I’m going to share this journey into colour, I feel like I have to be totally honest about it. Normally I’m not too quick to post my “failures” (or we could drop the judgement and call them “trial runs”) but I’ve been reflecting… And if I only post the good parts like I’ve always aimed to, missing out all of the trials, all of the errors… “Oh hey, look what I just did! (But we’ll forget the mountains of crap I churned out to get to this point)”… Am I not assembling a totally inauthentic picture of this journey? And if that’s the case, what’s the point of sharing it in the first place?! Especially when the failures are the most important part, they’re my teachers! The things that tell me how to do it better next time, the things that allow me to take one more step towards “success”. So If I painted a more authentic picture… If I shared the “failures” too… Would it help other people be more comfortable in theirs? If I then shared the “successes”, would it remind them that this is where all of their failures inevitably lead to? (If I stopped using “others” as an excuse, would I realise I’m ultimately reminding myself? ?) So here it is and here it will be; the good, the bad and the downright ugly. The beauty is, those three distinctions don’t really exist with art because in reality it’s all creative fucking perfection anyway. I got the watercolours out the other night, thanks to two fellow artists inspiring me (? @bioworkz + @maxehrman ?) and went to town on a Raja print like I was 5 years old all over again. I went a little too far… but as we find the balance of too little or *too much* in our young age, as do I at the beginning of this journey ? One more “failure” under the belt and one step closer to success ??

A post shared by ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Faye Halliday (@fayehallidayart) on Jun 6, 2017 at 1:33pm PDT

A post shared by ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Faye Halliday (@fayehallidayart) on Apr 13, 2017 at 12:42pm PDT

Who needs crayons when this beautiful world colours things in so well ?

A post shared by ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Faye Halliday (@fayehallidayart) on Apr 2, 2017 at 1:19pm PDT

(Re)introducing Pānī ?all finished in supersize! (I think you can still catch a preview of the timelapse for this in my story!) Supersize prints are now finally available to preorder on my site ? (links in my bio!) (so many ()’s)

A post shared by ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Faye Halliday (@fayehallidayart) on Mar 28, 2017 at 12:58pm PDT