A Crowland artist has her sights set on a professional career of making masterpieces while encouraging others to take up pencil and paintbrush at the same time.
Acrylic and digital artwork by Emma Shortland (29) is on display every other Thursday at The Mansion House Hotel, Holbeach, and the artist also has a growing list of commission-based work.
Emma’s talents were first spotted when she was a pupil at Fleet Wood Lane Primary School and her artistic ambitions were further encouraged by staff at Spalding High School.
She said: “I’ve always had an interest in art as far back as primary school and I carried it on through to my A-levels.
“There was a very good teacher at Spalding High School who was excellent at encouraging people to be the best they could be with their artwork.
“But after I left school, I decided to go into full-time employment because I thought the opportunities to go onto higher education and study art in a rural location were limited.
“But I still did work for exhibitions in churches and my dream now is to make a career out of my artwork.”
Emma hopes a decision to launch the £2.6 million Transported arts project in Holbeach next month will help other artists to emerge from the area.
She said: “I know there are people out there who would love Holbeach to be more embracing of the arts and I think that’s coming with the launch of Transported.”