"I juggle painting with helping out on the family farm' says successful artist Fiona Scott whose sister is former news reader Selina Scott

"As a child art was the only thing I was interested in,” says Fiona. “I was always drawing, sketching and painting. I wasn’t interested in anything else at school and I just wanted to carry on and go to art school and become an artist. I never really envisaged what kind of artist I was going to be ”

Born in Ripon, Fiona moved to Scotland as a teenager with her family when her father retired.

She attended Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee, Scotland and had the choice to either study design, ceramics, sculpture but she headed down the fine art route. "It wasn’t until I finished the four year course that I thought maybe I should have done design, because to become an artist and make a living out of it is tough.”

Fiona says she was always encouraged by her family to paint and was lucky enough to start getting commissions as soon as she had graduated from art school.

"It was really through word of mouth I managed to keep on painting.”

After living in Edinburgh after leaving art college she eventually she followed her parents back to England after they returned to Yorkshire.

"When I was about 26 I got a little cottage in Helmsley and converted the downstairs into a gallery with a studio and I lived upstairs. I opened the gallery to the public,” says Fiona.

"I started to get a name in the area for my work and people would commission me to do their children or their parents or pets. It really got me on the map around here. But also during that time people kept saying I should send work down to galleries and exhibitions in London.”

Many accepted her works and she started to exhibit with them getting her name known further afield than Yorkshire.

Her work has been included in many private collections throughout the world, from a large oil of a highland bull, commissioned by a congressman in Washington DC, to a self-portrait, now in Australia, which was exhibited at The Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

“I’ve also been fortunate to have exhibited at many prestigious exhibitions which include the Royal Academy, the National Portrait Gallery, The Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and Royal Watercolour Society,” says Fiona.

“This year is the tenth time I has exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and that was a self-portrait.”

She says she likes to do self-portraits and she can just paint as she likes.

"I can paint what I really want to do I’m the only person that it’s going to offend – I can just let it rip. The one I’ve just painted of myself my family don’t particularly like it and actually I’m not that keen on it as I do look really miserable but I wouldn’t have been able to paint anyone else like that not even my family. They don’t want to see themselves like that.”

One of the things that makes Fiona stand out from other artists is the variety of her work which means she never gets pigeonholed.

“I’ve always enjoyed painting different subjects – still life, landscape although at art school I did do a lot of portraiture – I painted a lot of punks as there were a lot of them about back then and I found all the bright coloured hair and outfits joyful to paint. I also did a lot of still life and landscape. I’ve always carried on doing that.

“I go from doing a portrait of a person to a painting of an animal and then onto still life – I really like the variety I’m not one of these artists who just sticks to the one subject, I think I’d find that really boring. I need to different things.”

Fiona normally works in oil although she does also do some works in pastel and watercolour. “I love working in oils as I like to build up an image. I work in layers and with oil it allows you to build it up but with something like acrylics they dry too fast and it’s not for me.”

She has had the odd solo exhibition but she mainly works to commission.

If she is painting a person she says she likes to visit them in their own home initially and take photographs and do some sketches and then she likes them to come to her studio for two or three sittings.

“Working from photographs in okay but you need to have somebody in front of you to actually see them. I also don’t let people see a work while it is being painted, as the process changes all the time, only once it is finished. I have never had a bad response to a portrait – it’s always gone well but there is always this nervousness when you show them it for the first time. It is a bit daunting, there is a pressure to make sure you get across someone’s personality and likeness and that’s one of the reasons I like doing other subjects as well and not just portraits.

"When I am doing a still life or a landscape I can just relax – but having said I really do enjoy doing portraiture.”

Fiona says there are pros and cons having her studio at home, particularly at this time of year when she is needed to help out on the farm which is mixed arable and livestock.

"I love having my studio here, but it can be distracting particularly at this time of year when the farm is extremely busy. I’m always on call. I might be in the middle of a painting and really in the zone then get a call saying I’m needed to help out and I have to go off running down the lane,” says Fiona.

"I can hardly say I’m sorry I’m in the middle of a painting. There is always something that needs doing when you live on a farm. That is challenge at time just to be able to switch off and focus on my painting.”

They have also started a new diversity project.

The Flower Belt, which is in its fourth year, is a pick-your-own flower and pumpkin farm offering visitors a unique, hands-on experience with nature. There is also a cafe and a shop.

"It was my son’s idea and the first two years he had me in cattle trailer in the middle of the field with an umbrella and table,” says Fiona.

“The first year was lovely because no one really knew about us so I would just sit there in the middle of the field in a deckchair sketching – it was bliss, I wasn’t getting an hassle from anybody. But now it has expanded to doing pizza and live music – and it’s really busy which is great too.”

So Fiona has to grab every minute she can to get in her studio and get on with her paintings.

For more information on Fiona’s work visit www.fionascott.net

For more on the Flower Belt vist theflowerbelt.co.uk