I can't help feeling this title is a little ambiguous as my main focus when creating art on commission for my clients is, of course, more about you!

However, I did get asked almost continuous questions, or at least I did, when, pre-COVID, I attended my many exhibition events each year and, quite naturally, the same questions tended to crop up again and again:

• How long did it take you to paint that? (Usually indicating one of my larger works).
• What inspires you to paint what you do?
• Would you be able to paint a landscape, a farmhouse, a horse, my dogs, a dream or perhaps a meadow containing my favourite flowers or flowers from my wedding bouquet (and almost anything else you can imagine) from photographs or ideas I send you?

And I want to answer, in turn -

• All my life (but I don't of course) I explain instead that every work takes a different amount of time - like a birth - some come easier and quicker than others.
• Well, my husband and I, and eventually our two sons, lived for years on a working farm / smallholding and made our living from it too until my husband was struck down with an incurable (but now much moderated) illness. To be immersed in nature and to interact with it on a daily basis was to live in a kind of strenuous paradise.
• And yes, I often take photographs as well as make preliminary sketches of landscapes, scenes, animals etc. to paint the art my own spirit recommends to me. So, when your spirit whispers to you that you need a beautiful reminder or a way to say 'thank you' or 'I love you' or 'remember me' to someone very special (maybe that's even you!) your photographs and even concepts and ideas can be a great way to begin an exciting conversation with me - a conversation that could very well lead to at least one of your dreams coming true!

I have always painted and drawn you see, at least as long as I can remember, and began actively selling my work as far back as the early 1980's but I don't consider I became a full-time professional artist until late 2009. I'd just completed three years of full time study as a mature student at Trinity College University in Carmarthen, west Wales and came away clutching a shiny new BA in Fine Art with honours - and a whole new understanding of just what art meant.

Now, tens of thousands of pounds of sales later, I still share with you that passion for art. My small studio gallery, which is open to the public by appointment, is a lovely place to work - or just to look - and almost every room in my home has become richly rewarded by several pieces; by their warmth, their luminosity and colour, their internal secret stories and their sheer vivacity. My husband and I have come to look upon each one as a much loved friend who, individually, rarely fail to lift our spirits when we see them and together they fill us and our home with a quiet joy.  

And so, finally, from one art lover to another.

Remember that I am here to assist you with absolutely any queries you may have, no matter how many times you think I may have been asked them before, no matter how wild and odd and original you might think they'll sound!

So why not begin our conversation in the contact box right here right now and let me know your thoughts!

With my kindest regards,
Pat
Patricia Bullen-Whatling BA Fine Art (Hons)