I grew up on a small dairy farm in Derbyshire. I love animals and painting; also music and karate! I took ‘A’ level art at school but went on to study music at university. Since then I have worked as a music teacher. My life changed completely three years ago when a man came to the house to fix the double glazing!

I was sitting at a table drawing a picture of my children’s toys as a surprise for them. The man saw what I was doing and said:
‘Will you do a picture for me?’
The man wanted a picture of himself and two friends riding their vintage racing motorbikes, together with a boxer dog, as a gift for his friend’s 5oth birthday.

The man was pleased with the picture and asked me to do another one – this time a motorbike with sidecar!

Other friends encouraged me and asked me to do portraits of their pets as gifts, too. By word of mouth I began to get a few local customers who also wanted pet portraits. So quite by accident I discovered that there was something that I could do that made lots of people really happy – and me too!

I was fortunate to receive an excellent grounding in art techniques at school which has stayed in my mind as if it was only yesterday. I like to look at details. Working with watercolour paint allows me to build up layers of colour and texture. I pay particular attention to the eyes, the ‘window of the soul’, and the nose, of my subjects.

I work from photographs. I spend as much time just looking at and thinking about my subject as I do the actual painting! I usually work on a cream, beige, or grey, textured paper. I do not paint backgrounds behind my portraits as I feel it distracts the eyes away from the portrait, which contains a lot of detail in itself.

The excitement of creating a new painting never goes away. With every subject there is a new challenge, something new to look at and to learn.

Thank you for taking the time to read about me and what I do. I hope that you enjoy looking at the portraits in the gallery.

Best Wishes

Caroline.