In fine feather

Kate Gatacre meets Nick Orr, a man who has turned his passion for the countryside into stunningly intricate works of feathered art.

When you look at Nick Orr's astonishing pieces, it's even more remarkable to think that, until a few years ago, he was just making them for friends and family. He probably still would be had it not been for one fortuitous G&T too many – a little Dutch courage if you will – at a party. However, let's start his story at the beginning.

When I talked to him, Nick was just getting ready for a day's picking-up. "I've been passionate about gundogs, shooting and the countryside since I was very young. My wife and my daughter are too, luckily!" Nick is now living in Lincolnshire, having moved there a year ago from Essex, but was brought up in Derbyshire, where he helped out on a farm. It was there, during his school years, that he discovered he had a knack for art. Encouraged by his art teacher, he tried everything – drawing, pottery, sculpture and painting. His passion and talent were strong enough for his teacher to ask an art school for a place for him, which he was awarded thanks to his work.

"But I was 14, going on 15, and that summer I got my first paid job. I really liked making money, so I didn't go back to school, or to art school. I joined the Royal Navy instead." And that, as far as an art career, might have been that. Nick says he didn't practise any art, "except for a few doodles", but the love of fieldsports never went away, and when he left the Navy, Nick stayed down south, in Essex, and became a gundog trainer, while also picking-up during the winter months.

It was in Essex that, four winters ago, when his daughter was eight, he started playing around with feathers. "We eat a lot of game at my house. I take as many pheasant and partridge as I'm given at the end of a shoot day – sometimes that would be up to 50 birds a day, and that is our meat. So I'd always just breast the birds. I was breasting birds one day when my daughter asked me if she could have some feathers for a collage. It got me thinking what a waste it was that the feathers weren't used somehow – they are so beautiful." So Nick started experimenting, sticking feathers together and cutting them out, cutting out card and sticking feathers behind it, until he cut out a picture from a single feather. "From then on, I picked up every feather I could find – crow, jay, pheasant, partridge, but soon realised that if I wanted to do this I'd need to find a bigger feather to work on." He soon realised that Bronze turkey feathers from a millinery supplier were going to be the only reliable supply of feathers big enough to work with, and so he ordered a mass of them.

"I made these cut outs for friends and family, just as something I really enjoyed doing. It was pictures of the world I knew – swallows flying, people shooting, deer, pheasants… partridge." Nick carried on with his gundog training and producing occasional, amazing silhouettes cut from feathers as a hobby. It all changed, he says, at a party – with the G&T. "I was talking to a couple all evening – she was an artist and he owned a gallery. It got later and later, until finally, I took out my phone and showed them one of my feather pictures. They asked to see more and then asked me how much I thought I could sell them for. I said I hadn't tried, they'd just been given away as gifts, but that one might fetch £30 or so. I sobered up very fast when they said they thought it would be more in the £800 region!"

Nick didn't really expect to hear much more from the couple, but the next day got a call from them to ask if he would make four pieces for the gallery. Still distrustful that his pieces were worth that much, Nick made two. The first sold within an hour of its arrival at the gallery, the second within four days, and someone rang the gallery to say they wanted the next piece that Nick made – no matter what. "I still find it hard to believe, to be honest!"

Nick and his family moved to Lincolnshire last year, and he decided to make art his main occupation, "partly because I wasn't sure I'd find very much picking up for a few years," he says, so he sold two of his dogs to a friend. However in his second season there, he's picking-up more than 50 days, so is bringing on a young black Labrador and has even taken on a few gundog training clients.

His feather pictures, meanwhile, seem to fly, if you'll pardon the pun, off the shelves, and he's never short of commissions. "It is mostly word of mouth. I'm commissioned to do all sorts now – safari images, chickens, deer, people shooting. I still love doing pheasants and partridge the best, because that is what I see the most, it's what I know. I can draw hares, and pheasant and partridge with my eyes shut." Each piece can take up to a month to complete ("and that is if I don't mess it up!"), but that amount of time is hardly surprising when you talk to him about the process.

"I have to plan each one very carefully, as space is so limited – my entire area to work on is no more than 3cm high by up to 30cm long, so that is why the deer mostly have their heads to the ground!" While Nick is "doodling" the design, he presses the feather flat, "you really can't cut a curved feather", using an old iron and then leaving the feather under something heavy for a while. "Once I'm happy with the design I start the cutting out process – though actually it isn't so much cutting as stippling with a very sharp blade." By good fortune, Nick has a brother-in-law who is a doctor who has been able to supply him with very fine scalpels, but he also makes his own blades by grinding down old knives. "You can't pull the blade over the feather, as you'd just pull the feather apart, and each barbule has to be severed using this stippling method. As long as you push the barbules together while you are pressing the blade on to them, they won't fall apart. It's more like using a pin than a scalpel." For very fine work Nick uses a magnifier and, once he is satisfied with the silhouette, he mounts it onto a background, using individual pins for each bird and several for the main feather so that these stand proud of the background. He then frames the piece himself. "Once they are in their frame, they're pretty bombproof but until then, the feather is very vulnerable."

Nick's passion for his art is very apparent when you talk to him and he still clearly can't quite believe that he has been able to make it his work. His only problem now is procuring more feathers. "I've used up all the best quality turkey feathers in the UK, so I'm researching where I can get more!"

For more information on Nick's work, visit nickorr.art