Local Artists

Liz's profile...

"Despite the surname I am a local girl born and brought up in Wrea Green. I am now resident in St Annes. I trained to be an art teacher, drawing and painting being my favourite subject, and gained a degree in 1975 in Art and Education.

I married in 1974 thus acquiring my Polish surname from my father-in-law. I  then spent the next 25 years teaching first A and O levels and later GCSEs. The last 18 years of this I was based at Fulwood High School in Preston.

I didn’t find a great deal of time during these years to keep my art work going and found myself quite rusty when I turned to it again. My husband was seriously ill and I began to attend a life drawing workshop for art teachers. It was amazing to see the improvement over the year’s course. I began to paint at home at this time, taking the subjects I found closest to my heart; namely flowers and my cats.

After my husband died I took a year out of teaching 1992/93 and spent the time painting and relaxing. I walked along the front at St. Annes for an hour every day and was fascinated by the views and how the seasons affected the colours. There followed a series of paintings of beach scenes. I was particularly interested in the way figures walking dogs or flying kites became such small dots on the sand/sky/seascape.

I continued to attend life drawing sessions and was becoming increasingly interested in the model’s face; this led on to a series of family portraits. I went back teaching part-time and fitted in a number of commissions mostly for people’s pets which I enjoyed enormously and began advertising my services for pet portraits.

I left teaching completely in 2000 to concentrate on my painting. Since then I have exhibited in small galleries and with the Lytham St Annes Art Society, with some success, and continue to take commissions. I had my first solo exhibition April/May 2006 at the Heritage Centre gallery Lytham. It was called ‘In My View’ and proved very successful and personally exciting.

I am now preparing work for my second solo exhibition again at The Heritage which runs from 12th to 31st May 2009. It will be entitled ‘Pictures 2 View’  being the second exhibition of my paintings and drawings at the gallery."