Inspiration In Art

Kirsty Owen talks to Made about her inspiration and career leading to becoming a national award winning artist.

Turning a hobby into a full-time profession has earned award-winning artist Kirsty Owen fans from all over the world. Her stunning paintings, predominantly of animals, capture the beauty of subjects including tigers, giraffes and elephants, as well as the landscapes surrounding these majestic creatures. “After my degree I went on a conventional career path and started working in graphic design, probably out of fear of becoming a wayward artist,” says Kirsty.

Kirsty has always been interested in art and started off creating work as a hobby, but took it much more seriously when she became a single mum about three years ago.

Her early work centred around creating pet portraits for clients, commissions that brought in regular work, but her heart was always set on wildlife, and today she is steadily carving a name for herself within the art world for this.

“My career I suppose has been a slow growth. I started painting pet portraits but I really enjoy painting wildlife, predominately animals, but I am now moving more towards more landscape work as well. I’m taking the environment as inspiration, particularly the issues around at the moment.”

Kirsty enjoys painting elephants, giraffes and primates in particular, and they prove popular with people who enjoy her work and follow her creations.

All imagery and paintings by Kirsty Owen, courtesy of Kirsty Owen.

challenging work, rather than being safe and creating work I know will definitely be popular.”

She uses a variety of mediums for her art including graphite/ charcoal, watercolour and oils but currently her preferred method is oil painting.

“I work very closely with a small group of photographers who give me permission to use and reference their photographs due to my limited resources when it comes to my subject matter which often includes wild animals in their habitat.

“Their generosity in letting me use the images has been invaluable to me as an artist and I will forever remain indebted to them for the inspiration and encouragement on my journey.

between photo realistic and painting (harder than you would imagine to achieve). I could only ever feel justified in using the photographs if I was bringing a different dimension to the original image. I love the interaction, when viewing my work, as people realise the very obvious brush strokes and blocks of colour that on first glance they have missed.”

Kirsty always works with a very limited four colour palette of red, blue, yellow and white (occasionally adding raw or burnt umber). Last year Kirsty amazed herself after winning a category in a coveted national art award. She entered her watercolour painting of an elephant into the Artist and Illustrators Artists of the Year competition and astounded herself with a win in the ‘readers choice’ section.

Along with the title she received £750 in prize money and had her work exhibited at London’s Mall Galleries, but she says the boost from winning was a real turning point.

“The shades I choose usually depend on the tonal value I am trying to achieve in the finished painting, but I find that this limited palette helps to harmonise the overall piece.”

Kirsty works from a studio on the side of her house and admits her work does sometimes spill out into the main house, although she finds working as an artist works perfectly in terms of a work and home balance.

26 “The award really helped me. As well as opening up doors and providing contacts it prompted me to look at my artwork even more seriously. It was also a real confidence boost, because there is a lot of self-doubt when producing art.

“It was also great to win that particular category as it was voted for by the public – again a real boost.”