Leicestershire Artist Sue Gardner has been painting colourful and stylish animals for over ten years, from her home studio in Ashby.
Last year, she was named ‘Animal artist of the Year’ in the Midlands Enterprise Awards.
She sat down with Pukaar for a chat about her passion for painting, her two Standard Poodles and all creatures great and small…
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It’s hard not to love Sue Gardner’s work. Unless you have something against animals, or hate anything that’s bright, beautiful and incredibly aesthetic. Not to mention adorable.
Her stunning highland cows stare out from her canvasses with confidence, charm and a sweet sincerity which is hard to resist.
She also paints smaller, but equally adorable animals; rabbits, birds and foxes. Even her two magnificent Poodles, Layla and Reba, have been immortalised in paint by the self confessed ‘animal fanatic’.
However, whatever she paints, Sue Gardner’s canvasses all have her signature style – an explosion of colour and large generous brush strokes, which attract the eye, and make them hard to ignore.
“I get a great buzz from colour – putting different colours next to each other and seeing how they react”, she told Pukaar.
“I never really have a plan when I paint – I just go to the easel, squeeze out tubes of all my favourite colours, and then just go from there, depending on my mood, and what colour my inner self needs to see in that moment”, she revealed.
“It’s all based on impulse, and it’s very freeing really.
“I don’t have any formal training, but I just do what comes naturally.
“People seem to love the colours and obviously, the animals too, which make them smile”, she added.
“It makes me happy to paint them too. I absolutely love it.”
Before becoming full time artist, Sue previously worked as a dog groomer, a business she carried out from her home.
However, she gave this up during the 2020 lockdown, in order to indulge her life-long passion for art.
“Being an artist was never going to be easy, but it’s a privilege and something which I’m blessed to do everyday”, she said of her craft.
“It really keeps me on my toes – as do my two poodles, who always end up covered in paint!”
“They like to watch me at work and often brush against the canvasses and end up photobombing me when I’m trying to get a picture of me with my art!” she added.
Sue’s work is created with the desire to ‘enrich people’s lives’ and to ‘enliven their surroundings’. And it certainly does the trick!
Alongside her animals, she has recently been dabbling in landscapes, taking inspiration from the National Forest, which surrounds her in the heart of North West Leicestershire.
It’s an area of great beauty, and somewhere she feels very privileged to live.
Sue describes herself as a ‘synaesthete’, a vegan and a humanist. And someone who is absolutely ‘animal mad’.
“There’s a character to every animal, and a personality which I’m always striving to bring to the canvas – the eyes – the expression and the essence…” she revealed.
“I just love them all, and and constantly surrounded by an array of beautiful and magnificent creatures.
“If I had to pick a favourite [animal to paint] however, it would be my cows, which are very popular”, she added when pressed.
“People have a particular fondness for them, because they’re very kind and have a lovely gentle nature.
“I’m very lucky in my line of work. At the moment, I’m looking at a cow, a lion, two donkeys, a sheep and two poodles, which are all around the room at the moment!
“I’m in my absolute element. It’s my dream job, and sometimes I actually have to pinch myself!”
To find out more about Sue’s work, visit: www.suegardnerstudio.com
By Louise Steel
