About The House

Winner of the Artists & Illustrators award at this year’s Pastel Society exhibition, FELICITY HOUSE, chats to NATALIE MILNER about her glorious garden scenes

An unassuming subject can make a fascinating painting. “You can look at an impressive scene, but, instead, you can turn around and find one that needs noticing,” says the Dorset-based artist. And with the rustic garden scene in Espalier Tomatoes, the pastel painter has taken her own advice. Its juicy tomatoes, intricate composition and fascinating textural qualities prove that the familiar doesn’t have to mean dull. The delightful work was awarded the Artists & Illustrators prize at this year’s Pastel Society Annual Exhibition at London’s Mall Galleries earlier this year.

Felicity saw the fruit in the walled garden of West Dean College, near Chichester, where she taught art and was on good terms with the head gardener. “I went back the next week hoping that all those shades of red, green and orange would still be there, and they were,” she says. “So I homed in and set up my easel.”