Painter Jan Harvey and scrap metal sculptor Sophie Thompson, who have previously exhibited on their own forArtweeks, are joining forces this year to produce a show on a theme dear to both their hearts - rare breed animals.

Set in outbuildings belonging to Sophie and her partner in the Cotswold countryside at Milton-under-Wychwood, the exhibition will include a draw in aid of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, with the opportunity to win either an original painting by Jan or a sculpture by Sophie.

Both artists have loved animals since childhood, and keep their own rare breed species. Jan is particularly fond of horses, which she began to draw at the age of three.

"I used to have a Cleveland Bay Horse - they are big, quite slow, highly-intelligent creatures, used for carriage driving."

She is also passionate about ducks, and takes a dim view of fellow diners like Sophie who order the crispy variety on a night out at the Thai restaurant. She has kept Crested and Call Ducks, and Indian Runners - her local fox, however, knows quality when he sniffs it, and has a predilection for rare breeds of poultry.

Sophie keeps chickens and bantams and has the same problem. "We have got to go chicken-shopping again" she said. "You can get them off eBay now - fertilised eggs delivered to your door."

She also has Cotswold sheep, goats, horses, and Oxford Sandy and Black pigs, most of whom will be around to welcome visitors to the exhibition.

Jan, who last year launched a business selling limited-edition prints of her work, will be showing vibrant and colourful paintings of farm buildings, mostly in this area of the Cotswolds, which have been pulled down or radically changed. She bases these on photographs she takes when she spots one for sale or destined for conversion.

"I was driving through Chadlington" she said, giving an example of the sort of experience that originally inspired her to record this disappearing architecture, "and I came round a corner where a lovely farm used to be. There was nothing left except the chimney-stack!"

She tries to capture particular aspects of the Oxfordshire landscape in her work, for which she uses acrylic foundation finished with pastels. "You get a massive sky behind a farm, with beautiful fields in front - and the light is amazing: there's an awful lot of blues and greens, and the gorgeous purples of distant views. The sunsets round here are wonderful as well."

There's a close link between the disappearance of so many breeds of farm animal and the changing look of the countryside. "Farming's becoming so expensive now" said Jan " and farmers are getting out of livestock, so the breeds are becoming extinct. A friend of ours who farmed here 15 years ago said you could stand on the hill and in every field there were animals; and donkeys and goats down in the village. Now there's just one herd of cows."

Sophie, who joined Young Farmers as a teenager, has many friends in farming. The daughter of an architect, she did a Fine Arts degree at Exeter University.

"I used to make metal frames as armatures for my sculptures. When I left college, because I had a brother who was an agricultural engineer and had a forge, I became really interested in the shapes of old farm machinery.

"I go round the farms for scrap such as old chainsaw blades and steel plate - it is worth more now, so I usually have to pay for it - and to boot sales for things like pitchforks; and gypsy horse fairs for chain. If I have been commissioned I look for stuff that will be right for the sculpture - but sometimes I can let my imagination loose and make what the bits suggest to me."

One product of this way of working was a vulture, the idea for which came from a fragment of metal that looked like a beak. The rest was made out of chain and some parts of scythes.

In the yard and garden outside the barn are several sculptures of farm animals, including a goat scratching his head on a post and a Cotswold sheep with a surprisingly woolly coat.

"It takes me all day to make the wiggles for one of those, backwards and forwards in a vice" said Sophie.

At first glance one is struck by the liveliness and painstakingly recreated musculature of the anatomy but on closer inspection there is the added interest of identifying a breastbone made from a spade, or horseshoes giving shape to the sides of a pony's face.

The natural rust, or greenish coppery, colours of the found materials are preserved under a coat of lacquer.

In the last few years Sophie's been asked to make some strange things, such as the life-size silverbacked gorilla commissioned as a wedding present for a primatologist. "The bride was delighted" she said "and there were lots of comments about how much it looked like the groom!" Recently she made a horse for a non-speaking role in Lady Godiva.

"Moving some of the big sculptures can be difficult" she said. "To get one of them out we had to cut a hole in the fence and drive the tractor into the workshop." It's strenuous and dirty work too. "But she never damages her nails!" commented Jan.