Carla Jane
My name is Carla Jane, I am a Self taught English Artist specializing in Portraits of People and Animals, although I am able to draw absolutely anything, I feel they are my strongest subjects.
I have been Drawing and Painting all my life from the moment I could hold a pencil, I have always had a passion for it.
I believe it is a gift.
I currently reside in Cornwall after moving here in 2004 as it is an inspiring and peacefull place to be.
Born in the West Midlands, UK in 1974 I grew up in a small town named Cradley Heath, I went to a nearby School where My Artistic potential was first noticed.
When I was about 10 years old, I was chosen with ten other children from our School to attend an Art Centre in Birmingham on a Saturday for several weeks, each week we learned about all different kinds of Art.
We Sculpted with clay, Painted and Drew both still and live subjects, learned about Music and Acting.
On one occasion, we were all seated around a large table covered with straw and we were all wondering what was about to happen when the tutor placed a box on the table and released a live chicken which we were expected to draw as it walked about on top of the straw on the table.
It was great fun which turned hilarious when the chicken stopped suddenly, let out a squawk and laid an egg right in front of our very eyes!
I made sure I drew the egg too, I had the best marks in class.
At High school I did GCSE Art and Graphics, then went on to college to study General Art and Design, gaining a B'tec National Diploma after two years, though I do not think that college helped my style and technique, I enjoyed the experience.
At the age of 18, I went to Holland, where I worked in Boarding kennels and a Cattery, this is where I decided to build up a portfolio of dogs and cats as I had plenty of subjects to study or photograph in which to work from later.
Back in England at the age of 18, I started up my own Business and studied a business course with the Prince's Youth Business Trust.
Over the next few years I tried to market myself and attended as many Dog shows, Cat shows, Trade fayre's, Craft fayre's and Market stalls as possible to promote and sell my Artwork. There was a lot of interest, people loved what they saw, I took orders for Personal Commissions, this is where I started to concentrate on the Commissioned Portraits side whilst building up portfolio's of my artwork of cats, dogs, birds, wildlife and people using watercolour, acrylics, gouache, pastels, pastel pencils, pencil crayons and graphite, all the time concentrating on proportion, detail and life like qualities, this is what makes up my particular style of work.
I work mostly from Photographs, when working from a good clear photograph, you can pick out even the tiniest of detail which can be the difference between a flat looking piece and a piece that jumps out of the page at you.
In the mid 90`s when I was about 18, whilst attending a Cat show with a stall to show off my Artwork, I was approached and asked if I would do a mini interview and have my photograph take for the Cat magazine, I felt really proud to appear in that magazine.
You can view my work online at carlajaneart, I hope you will enjoy looking through the site and will want to come back again.
I sell various prints of many subjects including; Animals, People, Cars, Motorbikes, Birds, Aquatic life, Horses, Sunsets, too many to name. I also do Personal Commissions of any subject I am asked to do (a Cow named Lotty, was one of the more unusual ones :)) Prices start from just £285 working from a good clear photograph of the subject of your choice, work can take between 3 weeks or 3 months depending on specification of the Portrait or how busy I am. I am also in the process of doing a series of Greetings Cards and Bookmark to sell here at Auction. Hope you enjoy looking at my work, if you would like to purchase anything from me at Auction or otherwise, even if you have a query or your own ideas, please feel free to email me, look forward to hearing from you :)