Humour is at the heart of everything for Ann Edwards. She has one of those humorous faces and when she talks, her speech is sprinkled with amusing quips, all told with a twinkle in her eye.
Ann was born with artistic flair, perhaps not surprising as her mother was a dancer and contortionist in a travelling circus.
"Right from an early age, all I ever wanted to do was draw and paint," Ann said. "I used to find excuses to stay off school so that I could." But, apart from art lessons at school, Ann never had any formal training. When she did start work, it was in her parents' gift and novelty shop in her native Blackpool.
"I did that for five years, then I realised that I was going nowhere and went off to Manchester Poly to study landscape design."
That was not Ann's metier either, sitting in a drawing office and surrounded by draughtsmen who never said a word.
She married John, three daughters came along and her passion for art was fitted in around her family. In 1994, Ann began to paint more seriously, her theme being landscapes based on poets and poetry. These are very soft, almost soft-focus, and each has a line or two from the poem that inspired it written on the painting.
Ann is very modest about these works and says that they appeal only to a certain type of person and are hard to sell. Truth is, she has been recognised by London's prestigious CCA Galleries, which regularly feature such names as Damien Hirst and Beryl Cook.
The turning point for Ann, who lives in Blewbury, came when for some light relief, she branched out into another genre, drawings and paintings based on her two dogs, cat Thomas and a rascally parrot called Jasper. Thomas is the archetypal huge black tom, complete with white chest and matching whiskers. Jasper was a 40th birthday present from husband John.
Now there is a whole range of characters, The Family Pets, featuring the trials and tribulations of Digger, Fat Cat, Rags, Rosie, Scotty and Amy. Not only are the drawings available as original or limited edition prints, but also as cards and giftware, including aprons, coasters and T-shirts.
For dog and cat lovers, a series of cards reflect the characters' take on music, fashion and sport and include the Dogs Rock - complete with Elvis impersonator - Fashion Victims and Sports Mad collections.
Some of Ann's pictures feature other animals such as elephants. She showed me one picture called Silly Cow, her tongue-in-cheek look at the Beckhams hiding from the paparazzi inside a pantomime cow. Only the couple's legs are visible. David is the back legs, clad in green and white football stockings and boots, Victoria is sporting her usual bling shoes.
This is what sets Ann's work apart. Most artists will paint a picture, then seek a suitable title. Ann conjures up a theme and a title first, followed by the drawing. From theme to finished monotype is a laborious process taking two or three weeks and with a high rejection rate. A monotype is an ink and watercolour painting on paper.
First, Ann will make 15 or 20 sketches, all on tracing paper, gradually refining the drawing in terms of fine detail like the angle of a cat's tail and the relationship between the various figures.
She illustrated her point with her painting The Food Chain, a dog chasing a cat chasing a mouse. Critical to the success was the creation of a wedge shape tapering from right to left, so the size ratio of the three animals was key.
The final drawing is reversed and laid below a sheet of glass. Body colour for the animals is almost invariably black printer's ink, a hard, oily substance.
The ink is spread on the glass to match the drawing beneath, then with a combination of paint brushes and pieces of sharpened bamboo, Ann will create the fine detail.
The paper for the painting is taped to the glass at one side, then pressed down onto the ink. For this Ann uses a high-tech tool -- an old soup spoon! Each inking will produce two paintings. Details such as a beak or clothes in other colours she adds individually before hanging the finished work on clothes-lines in her studio for a week to dry. Sometimes she adds gold lamé or a jewel for an eye.
"Some of them don't survive Jasper's attacks on what he sees as alien creatures," she remarked with a broad grin.
With an evolving business, Ann Edwards Art was formed in 2004. Exhibiting at the NEC, Ann was approached by a group of Japanese. "Outwardly I was smiling and making the right noises, but inwardly I was shaking, because they were talking huge numbers of prints and paintings and I was wondering how the hell I could cope with the demand. I ended up saying I would think about it and they wandered off. After they had gone, it hit me what a golden opportunity this was, so I scoured the exhibition to find them."
It was clearly a prescient thought. She had been talking to the biggest art dealer in Japan, with 200 branches throughout the country. They commissioned 120 original paintings, of which 200 limited edition prints of a selected 13 paintings have been made.
In 2006, Ann went on a whistlestop signing tour of Tokyo, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. She was almost mobbed wherever she went, finding that the Japanese share the British sense of humour and love anything bearing the Union Jack.
Now the hunt is on for one dog and one cat with star quality to become the inspiration for two new characters in The Family Pets range. In conjunction with Oxford-based pet food company Organipets, there is a competition, Best Pets, with prizes of Ann's original artwork and limited editions.
Ann has a very simple goal in life.
She said: "I like to bring a smile to the face of everyone who receives a painting or a gift from my collection."
Ann Edwards' work can be found at The Gallery, Steventon, 01235 831253. or www.organipets.co.uk
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