Passion for Portraits

An old school friend sparked a flame inside of this artist to rekindle her love of art.

- Jan Jury

I have lived on the Central Coast of NSW most of my life, where we are blessed with beautiful beaches, national parks, abundant in lots of species of birds and animals. During my school years I chose art classes which I looked forward to the most of all my subjects. Caricatures, cartoons and animals were always in my art books. Title pages were masterpieces! I also enrolled in a correspondence course which included sign-writing and I loved doing that with pen and ink.

After leaving school I got a job at Hornsby Council as a receptionist and continued working there for about six years until I married and had two daughters. While the girls were playing I got into ceramics, which was a great time, painting delicate flowers and designs on jugs, plates, and ornaments, and getting them fired was exciting to see how the finished product would turn out. I even sold a few things which was a boost for me. I enrolled in a folk art course and my dad was pretty handy at carpentry so he would make wooden kitchen trays and I would paint flowers, houses, and birds on them. I got a few orders for them and my range of designs grew to chooks, pigs, farm sheds and lots of Australian flowers.