Carole McAlpine

 I am a self taught artist working in coloured pencil and occasionally mixed media. 

I was born in the UK and emigrated with my husband to the USA in 1968.  Divorcing after 16 years of marriage I moved to Australia to be close to my sister and parents who had moved from the UK on their retirement.  During my time in Australia I ran my own stained glass business, incorporating fused glass and painted glass into the items I made.  I also took some evening courses in art and art history and dabbled with pastel portraiture.  After a holiday back to the USA in 2012, my husband and I reconnected and we remarried in 2013, and I moved back to the States where I took up graphite pencil drawing in my retirement.  
After my husband retired in 2015 we moved back to California from Rhode Island to be closer to our son, and I continued with the drawing, adding some coloured pencil into the mix.  A holiday back to the UK helped us to decide it was time to return to our roots and so in 2019 we returned to England and settled on the Isle of Wight.  I continued to learn and experiment with coloured pencil and realised it was the medium for me!  

I am in love with detail and am inspired to draw from photos that my husband takes and love to draw just about any subject.  Art is so subjective, what you may like I might not, and vice versa, and that is why I am firmly of the belief that anyone can draw, paint, sculpt or make art in any form they choose.  All that is needed is to take that first step!