Emma Lopes Art

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Emma Lopes Art Emma Lopes- Illustrator of nature- Art as activism through celebration of the natural world. Open for licensing, commissions and collaborations.

Illustrations and creations of Emma Lopes, artist based in Lisbon, Portugal. Spending time in wild places is her favourite pastime and mother nature is her muse. A core belief which filters into every aspect of her work is that all life is interconnected. Working in watercolour, gouache, collage, and sometimes even marine debris, she uses detail, pattern and colour to focus our attention on the vibrancy and wonder of nature. Her art is a form of activism through celebration of a world we must fight to protect.

This little corner of my studio has been quite precious for getting cosy & into the research. For most of my projects do...
12/10/2026

This little corner of my studio has been quite precious for getting cosy & into the research. For most of my projects do involve hours of research. It's really important that I understand the ecosystems and the relationships within the ecosystems. If there is a threatened species, why is it threatened? The research may involve, books, films, podcasts & of course internet searches (I use Ecosia rather than Google 🌳🌲🌴). I have some moments of course when I just paint & have music on too but the research is a step I cannot miss!
I think I will need to undo this little cosy section soon as I'm painting bigger now and need more space for my canvases. I'm using a bed that was left here by the previous owners & I just threw some spare pillows on it to be more of a day bed, but perhaps I'll find a nice chair instead!

📸 Kareena Zerefos

It's World Octopus Day and I realised it has been some time since I painted an octopus. Their bodies have a watery quali...
08/10/2026

It's World Octopus Day and I realised it has been some time since I painted an octopus. Their bodies have a watery quality being able to change shape & sneak into little crevices to hide. The blue-ringed octopus may be small in size (12-20cm long) but they are pretty mighty in venom. They live amongst coral reefs & rock pools in the Pacific & Indian ocean from Japan to Australia and despite being so recognisable by their blue rings which contain light reflectors called iridophores, they are also very good at hiding. If you do see one as with all wildlife look, but don't touch 🐙🪸🐙🪸🐙🪸🐙

"Bird" for hosted by skip a coffee, save a family Starlings are intelligent birds, they are often underappreciated bei...
02/10/2026

"Bird" for hosted by skip a coffee, save a family
Starlings are intelligent birds, they are often underappreciated being not the most colourful of exotic of birds but together they are extraordinary. Their coming together is thought to be a way that they protect themselves from predators. If you have ever seen a huge murmuration of starlings you have seen one of the wonders of nature. We can learn so much from nature. Like so many of the world's animals we are social beings who are stronger in community, we help each other, support each other and protect each other and that is really what makes us extraordinary too. I thought this was a perfect metaphor for the work and community of skip a coffee, save a family 🕊️❤️☕

There are few places better for reflection on the human condition than the coast. It is a place of awe & stories, of pla...
27/09/2026

There are few places better for reflection on the human condition than the coast. It is a place of awe & stories, of play, rest and survival. It is humbling to meet such a vast entity, our eyes can rest on a full wide horizon and take in an open and ever-changing sky. We know that the ocean stretches far to distant lands thousands & thousands of kilometres away and so, so deep that it can be difficult to wrap our brains around. We know that it is home so much life, from the very tiny organisms, to the most gigantic creatures that ever evolved, to the most extraordinary and alien-like beings beyond our wildest imaginings. For most of us, those who don't work or travel extensively out at sea, the coast is as far as we venture into the largest habitat on earth. It is a boundary for us, in that we can only interact as far as we can swim or paddle. But it is a false boundary by any other measure of life, for water and atmospheric cycles, life is mostly carbon whether on land or sea, and no matter if we live in the most land-locked place on earth we still need a healthy ocean to survive.

All this is why painting the coast is one of the subjects that moves me the most. ..

If you know you know I love to paint wildlife, but beyond that my work is about the interdependence of all life & a dail...
25/09/2026

If you know you know I love to paint wildlife, but beyond that my work is about the interdependence of all life & a daily appreciation for the wonders of nature. I use pattern to highlight the connections: from the patterns of celular structures, to the patterns on a turtles shell, the veins of a leaf, fish scales, the veins of great river tributaries, on rock strata. Patterns are everywhere.

If you are close to Ericeira, tomorrow I will be sharing a mini workshop at the wonderful Creative space for families looking at patterns and natural forms. Please join us there for some creativity and home made crêpes!

Whatever you are doing today, spare a moment to remember how incredible is seagrass! A powerhouse of life in the ocean, ...
22/09/2026

Whatever you are doing today, spare a moment to remember how incredible is seagrass! A powerhouse of life in the ocean, nursery, feeding ground, water filtration, carbon sequestration, erosion reduction. Healthy seagrass meadows make the world better for us all. Check out Project Seagrass and Ocean Alive for some incredible seagrass organisations and ways you can get involved through citizen science, volunteering or even just learning more about seagrass and how amazing it is.

One massive step in the right direction would be to ban bottom trawling in marine protected areas. This would allow fish to breed and grow safely and mean more fish in the sea. What's not to love! 💚🌊💚

Often for me these sketches are not even about the end result. They may inform future paintings, I may look at them and ...
19/09/2026

Often for me these sketches are not even about the end result. They may inform future paintings, I may look at them and feel proud of them, they may allow me to explore new techniques but mostly they allow me to sit still and drink in a moment of my life with so much more attention. That's really quite precious.

Once I lost a sketchbook (I shared about it on here). It was from the first 3 years of my son's life, full of special memories. Moments when he napped, or played next to me on the sand when I started painting. I no longer have the book, but I still have those memories more deeply recorded and appreciated in a way that I wouldn't otherwise.

My favourite way to paint. Swim, paint, swim... I'm about to dive into my September project. I suspect I won't come up f...
16/09/2026

My favourite way to paint. Swim, paint, swim... I'm about to dive into my September project. I suspect I won't come up for air again until October. It's nature inspired, for nature and for all life. I'm excited 💙💦

Photo by my talented husband renato lopes

On August 22nd 2026 ocean temperatures were the highest ever recorded. The previous high was in 2024. Year on year, the ...
14/09/2026

On August 22nd 2026 ocean temperatures were the highest ever recorded. The previous high was in 2024. Year on year, the ocean warms. In fact, every second the ocean absorbs the equivalent energy of 12 Hiroshima bombs per second.
We all know that a warming ocean is bad news for coral reefs, and life in the ocean, but a super-heated ocean has consequences for us all: extreme weather, changes to climate globally, disruption of food production due to altered rainfall patterns. We have all been warned to buckle up for this year of super El Niño. There have been 5 super El Niño events in recorded history and this one will occur with the hottest background climate. We will soon understand more about what this event will mean for us all this year but in the meantime we must keep pressuring our governments to stop all new fossil fuels and restore nature now..

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Lisbon

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