Jan Cooper

Jan is an artist based in Sandwich, Kent, UK.  She studied graphics at Canterbury Art College, then went on to creating handmade 3D greetings cards. This inspired her to move onto making jewellery, which she does with various textiles. She loves to use gold, velvet and mixing fabrics with textured and rigid materials. Jan’s passion for icons has led her to develop a range of brooches and cards featuring artist Frida Kahlo. Her personal and professional development has derived from her love of fashion, which can be seen in each of her designs.

Dee Nolan

Hi, I am Dee.

I have a husband of 30+ years and a grown-up family who now have their own families! Despite moving away and working abroad, I have always found myself drawn back to the seaside towns of Thanet, it’s where I find my inspiration. Having done many different things to get by when raising our family, I am fortunate to now be at a stage where I can do what I love and that is sewing.

I make and embroider a vast array of different things from gifts for children to home furnishings, anything I make can usually be personalised and adapted.

Having a lifelong interest in the arts and crafts, sewing and stitch craft in particular, in 2017 I decided to develop my skills further when I became fascinated by the embroidery technology available, so I set about making and personalising useful and decorative fabric items and a business developed from there!

I love my work although it can be very labour intensive and it requires a lot of patience, but let me tell you there is no better feeling than producing that bespoke gift for the recipient, often to become a treasured family heirloom.

Dee Newton

I live in Birchington with my husband, two sons and two dogs. I just love to create beautiful things, be it watercolours, acrylics, hand-painted jewellery or vintage jewellery mosaics. Living here by our wonderful coastline inspires my artwork and I try to capture the iconic structures and coastline of Margate in a loose semi-abstract style.

Christine Kolinsky

Knitwear, knitwear and more knitwear. Based in Westgate-on-Sea, I produce beautifully designed knitwear with a difference.

For most of my life I have been involved in the creative arts and I have City & Guilds certificates in embroidery and dressmaking along with NVQ certificates in sewing.

My passion now is in creative knitwear that involves designing gloves, hats, knitted jewellery, designer handbags, novelty festive decorations etc. Not ordinary in any way, my gloves for example, are unique in their pattern, colour and design and their unusual nature makes them attractive to many customers. I am often praised by their originality and this is what drives me forward.

For me this is a hobby that I find relaxing and enjoyable and for this reason I like to make my products affordable so that other people can enjoy them too. My knitwear can make ideal presents so why not buy these in advance to give for birthdays and other occasions towards the end of the year as the weather turns cold?

Carol M Creasey

My name is Carol, and I am a Kent author. My first book published in 1993, was inspired by my son who was born with many difficulties including autism. Since then I have written 6 novels, and my autobiography CANDIDLY CAROL, which was published on 3rd April. I live with my partner Keith, cats Max and Mia, and dog Ben. I enjoy long walks, swimming, and playing badminton and tennis as well as my writing. I try to write something every day, it makes me feel complete as a person.

I have been an author since 1993, it was not intended, but sometimes our lives lead us on a different path. My son Philp was born in 1971, and right from a very early age, he had many difficulties including autism. Nobody knew much about autism then, and none of the doctors we visited could give us a prognosis, so we literally took each day as it came, and tried to deal with whatever life threw at us in our efforts to help him.

When he reached 21 in 1993, I was not only incredibly proud of his battle to survive, I also realised our experiences might help other families. So I wrote it all out by hand and sent it to Mencap, expecting them to put it in their magazine. They did better than that, they introduced me to my publisher, as they felt there were not enough books about the subject.

I am delighted to say that all hardback copies have been sold, and owing to its popularity, my publisher has reprinted it in paperback, and it's also available on kindle.

This spurred me on to write six more novels, and I have now completed my autobiography, but without the inspiration of my son's journey, this would never have happened.

Beverley Fisher

Designer by day, Artist by night!

I've been drawing and painting for as long as I can remember and have a passion for anything creative.

Growing up in Canterbury I always knew I wanted to work in a creative field. I started my career as a textile designer and quickly moved to the greeting card industry where I now work as a Creative Director, a job I love.

Studio life is fast paced with a constant flow of deadlines and an ever-expanding portfolio. Over the years I have spent less time designing and more time managing, so working on my own projects have become an important part of life. I try and exhibit my original artwork at least once a year at various galleries and I have recently worked on a couple of Wild in Art projects, the first one being Ashford Snowdogs and the next one, coming soon... Hares of Southend.

Art is a passion for me, from working with and helping my team of freelancers to working on my own projects.

I love painting and drawing wildlife with its varied texture and beautiful colours, capturing a quirky face or a peculiar pose. Once happy with my finished painting/drawing, my work is scanned to the highest standard. I then choose products with beautiful quality and printers who can reproduce the image to an exceptional standard.

All of my prints are limited edition Giclee Prints, limited to 100 editions, hand signed and come with a Certificate of Authenticity.

Ann Palmer

Ann has lived in Rochester, Kent, UK for 30 years. She spent 40 years working in the NHS as a Public Health doctor and began drawing and painting in 2007. Ann still draws mainly townscapes and sketches in preparation for her paintings. She works in oils principally land, sky and seascapes, often working directly out doors in front of the scene. Recently her work has developed to become larger, more abstract and expressionistic. Ann’s paintings are now often developed in the studio from her experiences en plein air, sketches and photographs, gaining inspiration from her travels in France and to the coasts of Cornwall and Normandy as well as her home county of Kent.

Ann developed her reputation as a plein air painter; working in the vineyards of the Loire Valley and around the Kent Coast where until 2017 she worked out of a beach hut in Whitstable. Ann has been painting in Whitstable for some 5 years, standing on the pebbly beach watching the tide ebb and flow, the morning mist across the Swale, the light on the horizon, the clouds coming in from the west over London, and the light out to sea to the north and east. The low tide exposes sandbanks, pebbles, seafood for the gulls to seek.

Ann now has a studio at the Nucleus Arts Centre in Rochester where she exhibits in the Halpern Gallery in Chatham and the Halpern Pop in Rochester; she also works from home painting in her conservatory and using her Attic Studio for preparing canvases and framing and storing her work. Currently Ann is working on a series of shoreline, sea and skyscape paintings around the Kent Coast and Cornwall.

Ann builds her own canvases using stretcher bars and 12oz cotton duck which she primes with 2-3 coats of acrylic primer and/or gesso. She usually coats the prepared canvas with turpsy red oil paint, often Indian red, sometimes Burnt Siena. When this is dry she lays out the scene with a thin coat of oil paints then building on this, firstly using a brush, then thick oil paint applied with a palette knife. The extent to which the painting is built with more impasto depends on the scene and mood. Ann’s style is impressionistic, representative tending towards some abstraction and expressionism.

Ann has been working on a series of paintings called Shoreline. This series depicts the beaches of Whitstable on the north coast of Kent and in Cornwall, at various times of day and year, state of the tide and weathers inspired by Ann’s experience painting on the beach. The series has been the subject of solo exhibitions in Ramsgate and Rochester.

Ann’s work is in collections across the UK and the US; she is represented by PAKS Gallery in Austria, Michael Joseph in Miami, Gabriel Fine Arts in London, Rossocinabro Gallery in Rome and in COLORIDA GALERIA DE ARTE in Lisbon. Ann also exhibits at Art Fairs, notably Roy’s Art Fair, the Parallax Art Fair, Talented Art Fair and East Sussex Art Fair. She also has a travelling exhibition of 10 large seascapes in oil with Little Van Gogh (www.littlevangogh.co.uk).

Andrew Bateman

I am an artist painting and creating based in Whitstable.

I used to work for the NHS providing MRI scans to patients and also as a veterinary nurse for 4 years, but after being diagnosed with autism in 2019, I decided to change my life totally and do something I love. I find painting takes me off to another world.

I work from my home, painting mainly in oils. I paint animals, but I also love painting in an expressionistic style too and have been working on some very personal pieces alongside my work centreing on animals.

I have turned some of my work into greetings cards and prints.