Having been lucky enough to have spent my formative years living on a farm, my understanding and love of animals have always been innate. My late mother was a veterinary nurse and my late father was an artificial inseminator, and this meant I was either rearing something by hand or making another hospital bed in a shoe box. My childhood was full of all creatures great and small and to this day, nothing gives me greater pleasure than working with or around animals.
I have a particular passion for dogs, in part because we grew up with so many. My mother earned a reputation for rescuing dogs which came with all sorts of ailments and traumas. It wasn’t uncommon for her to take on a sickly dog with a sorry prognosis, and for it then to go on and live for years because it was truly happy, running freely on the farm or helping round up cattle.
At the height of my mother’s charitable efforts, we had sixteen dogs, and the joy that each one brought to our big family meant that I too would start my own love affair with the canine. In my spare time, I work with dogs at a groomer’s and have the privilege of earning trust and building relationships with many breeds and personalities, which I love to depict by immortalising their characters with acrylic paint on canvas.
Whilst dogs are my most popular request, I also paint horses, cats and pets in fancy dress.