About Me

I am a self-taught pet portrait and wildlife artist living in the beautiful County of Pembrokeshire, UK. I have two grown up sons and my husband and I now have several dogs and three young cats sharing our home.

I have loved art since I was a child. I’ve always drawn and occasionally dabbled in painting but I have also been creative in many other ways.

I worked in a fabric shop part-time, which led me to making curtains and soft furnishings etc. I moved on and started making textile handbags from a studio at home and continued this for about 12 years. I built a website and joined a local art and craft group where I sold my work through exhibitions.

Around 2016, I was inspired by the work of the artists in the group. As a result of this I tried painting one of my dogs in acrylics, I was hooked. It’s not a particularly good painting, but I was so pleased with it at the time. I then wondered what else I could achieve.

I did more paintings when I could but it was very slow going because of my other work. The images below are a few of my first pieces.

Over the next couple of years I managed to paint a bit more.  I did a few pet portrait commissions through word of mouth.  These were done in acrylics which are lovely, vibrant, easy to use and quick drying, but they weren’t exactly what I wanted.  I found them hard to blend so I moved onto oils, or, to be precise, alkyd oils.  I found that alkyd oil paints suited me much more than acrylics and I still enjoy painting with them.

In between acrylics and oils, as I had sewn professionally for around 15 years, I started to work with mixed media.  I was inspired by a quilt artist who does beautiful work. However, I had never done any quilting, but I started experimenting.  I looked at how I could find my own way to work with fabrics and thread to make my pet portraits. I worked on a Kingfisher first and was quite pleased with how it turned out.  Then I decided to use a favourite photo of my girl, Poppy, and to do her dog portrait in mixed media.

At the start of 2018 I had problems with my arm, caused by repetitive strain injury through my work. As a result of this, it gave me the push I needed. In August, I was lucky enough to be able to take the scary but great step to fulfilling my dream. I became a full time pet portrait and wildlife artist.

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Have a browse around my website, you can see my latest work or have a look at my gallery where you can see all my finished pieces. If you have any questions just drop me a message or you can look at my FAQ’s where you may find an answer.