I've been hugely fortunate throughout my life to have been able to follow whatever path I chose at each moment of change. Art and horses have been my constants, sometimes in tandem, sometimes at odds. One of my strongest memories is a discussion with my tutor Barbara Robertson at DOJCA, when I was trying to see a future with both art and horses heavily involved, as the two worlds seemed to my immature mind to be worlds apart.

"Why don't you paint and draw horses?" she said.

It seems so simple and obvious now, but I ignored the sage advice, left art college, didn't really do much art, and rode horses for another ten years. When I found myself sitting on a horse attempting to cartwheel in front of a bus, and we both emerged unscathed, I figured it was time to concentrate on art again, and set my Pictures business up. I took a craft stand at Thirlestane Castle Horse Trials, and was absolutely terrified that nobody would like my work, and nobody would commission me. But they did, and here I am now! My portraits are hung across the globe, and through my work I've been lucky enough to meet some very famous horses, and their humans. I'm always much more star struck by the horses than the humans, which is better, really, as it's not appropriate to coo at people.

My work has always been commission based, so I rarely exhibit, except by annually taking a stand at Blair Castle Horse Trials. Over the years, I've donated charity portraits which have raised thousands of pounds for respective charities. This acts as a bit of a shop window, but also supporting stuff I care about.

My proudest effort was a portrait of the Hong Kong Derby winners from 1987-1994 which raised $350,000 HKD. I was there, it was amazing!

I lived in France for a while, becoming involved in the welfare of unwanted and neglected horses, and those travelling huge distances to slaughter. Several times I experienced the paradox of monitoring the Maurs meat market two days before I travelled to Pau to photograph elite event horses. The furthest extremes of the equine spectrum seen in 48 hours.

I'm now back home in Scotland, in the beautiful East Lothian area, and I wonder why I never thought to live here before. I'm inspired by the big skies, the big seas, and the colours. Hence my venture into a totally new genre for me, painting and drawing seas and skies.

 Portraiture necessarily means that my palette is limited, and accuracy is king. It's my first love, putting the soul into a piece, telling the story of the subject with their eyes and expressions. It needs to be that character looking out, not just 'a' horse, but 'that' horse.  Not 'a' dog, but 'that' dog. It's bizarre, and frightening(!) how much difference a mark made in the wrong place, just half a millimetre away from where I want it to be, can change the entire expression and feel.

I do believe for artists to remain fresh, they have to evolve. I'm captivated by all the different media on offer. Working in oils, acrylics, textures, pan pastels, inks and pencils, using collage, masking, scraping and generally mixing and experimenting with everything is a joy. Using surfaces like touch paper, board, canvas and fabric allow me the freedom of splashing down colour, creating a vibrancy and immediacy of marks and textures that paper doesn't. It feels strange setting up a website that's not just portraits, so I hope you enjoy looking at the different work as much as I love making it.

Jenny