Jane graduated with a BA Hons Degree in French and German from The University of of Exeter.
She has trained in portraiture at The Heatherley School of Fine Art in Chelsea, and at City Lit, where she took the ‘Year of the Figure and Portrait’ programme. She has also participated in courses with the Royal Drawing School and regularly paints and sketches models from life at various life-drawing groups in London. She is available for portrait commissions.
Jane first began painting whilst teaching English in Japan, learning the delicate art of Sumi-e (Japanese Black Ink Painting) with a Master of the Art in Yokohama. She was particularly inspired by the artists of the floating world; Hiroshige and Hokusai, spending time studying their style; the figures in the landscape, the flattened space, radical perspectives and simplified palettes
She continued her study of art in The Netherlands, enrolling at the Werkschuit Art School of Gouda. There she focused on still-life flower painting in water colour, inspired by such flower painters of the Golden Age as Rachel van Ruysch and by the vivid colour of the Keukenhof tulip gardens, to which she returned many times to sketch. She was able to visit art galleries such as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Mauritshuis in The Hague, and study at close hand the works of her favourite Dutch painters; Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh amongst others.
She painted nine free portraits of NHS workers over the Covid lockdown and one of her paintings of three nurses features in celebrated artist Tom Croft’s book, ‘Portraits for NHS Heroes’, published by Bloomsbury Publishing.
Jane has exhibited her work in Japan, The Netherlands and the UK. Her paintings are held in private collections in the UK, USA, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Painting from life at The Heatherley School of Fine Art in Chelsea
Oil portrait of three nurses from Kings College Hospital, London, featured in Tom Croft’s book (above)
Plein air sketching with oil pastels in Grindelwald, Switzerland
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