A woman who only took up art on retirement has won a prestigious award for a coloured pencil drawing of her dog.
Sixty-seven-year-old Pauline Stuart, of Threlkeld, was diagnosed with breast cancer and decided to give up work as manager of Cumbria Medical Services four years ago.
Pauline had always been interested in art since she was a pupil at Southport High School for Girls but was not aware of her latent talent.
“I have always followed galleries and thought: ‘I can do that’,” said Pauline, a former champion fell runner. But she never followed up on what she believed and it was not until she retired that she took up her pencils after watching an artist called Bonny Snowdon, who has a coloured pencil academy, on YouTube.
“I thought I could have a go at this and drew my two beautiful whippets (Josie and Pep),” said the mother-of-three. “I thought it was something I could take up in retirement and have a go at.
“I did a picture of Josie and thought: ‘Why not enter some competitions?’
“After all, if you don’t put your stuff out there then you don’t get known. It’s nice to do something that other people think is quite good.”
She has just returned from an exhibition at the Espacio Gallery in London after winning the prestigious SAA (Supporting All Artists) Beginner Artist of the Year Award 2023 with her picture of Josie.
“It was amazing to win this award as there were more than 2,000 entries from around the world for the different categories in all sorts of media. My drawing is also featured on the front cover of the SAA magazine,” said Pauline.
“My picture of a friend’s Hungarian Vizsla has also been selected for publication in the forthcoming US Coloured Pencil Treasures book which features articles from 100 artists from 22 different countries which is a great honour.
“It seems apt that I am using coloured pencil as my foray into the art world, living just a stone’s throw from the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, home to the humble coloured pencil.”
