An artist’s bolthole

Jane Pinkney lives in a quintessential country cottage with a rabbit warren of rooms, low ceilings and roaring real fires.

It’s full of furniture, interesting knick-knacks and clocks and has a lovely lived-in feel that makes you want to kick off your shoes 
and toast your toes by the kitchen range.

It is an uncontrived success and to 
those who know Jane’s work, it looks 
and feels familiar.

Inspiration for her watercolours and drawings comes from a combination of memory, imagination and day-to-day observation and so elements of her home often creep into her pictures.

“Both my husband John and I love long case clocks and they have definitely featured,” says Jane, who adds that she is not a minimalist. “There is only one room that is devoid of clutter and that’s the kitchen where I work. I find having too much stuff is distracting when I am drawing.”

The long-scrubbed pine table is where she makes her famous mice pictures. She pings awake at six in the morning and is straight downstairs to pick up a pencil. She draws for about six hours each day, though her routine has been altered by a stint as artist-in-residence at nearby Nunnington Hall, which is holding a second exhibition of her work.

While at the hall, she draws on her knee and enjoys listening to visitors’ comments. There are few who don’t “ooh and ahh” over her pictures of mischievous little mice. They are super-cute and the settings are nostalgic but a big part of the success is down to the detail.

It’s this that has led to comparisons with Beatrix Potter and Arthur Rackham, and to her collectability. Her originals are sold at the world’s leading illustration gallery, Chris Beetles, based in London.

Yet if it hadn’t been for a comment from a friend she may have spent her life as a housewife who enjoyed art as a hobby.

“She told me: ‘I can’t understand women like you who have no ambition in life’. And that was it.”

Barnsley-born Jane, who had three children, took it as a challenge and called Marks and Spencer. She told them she had some pictures they might be interested in and got an appointment to see them 
in London.

“That was 1983 and I was clueless. I went in there with my pictures in a plastic carrier bag, but they loved one of a mouse and sewing machine, which they framed and sold as a print.”

Although she didn’t make much money, it boosted a confidence that had been knocked by a serious accident.

She had a precocious talent for drawing and won prizes but a terrible car crash that left her in a coma when she was 16 had a devastating effect on her young life.

“I had brain damage and broke everything except my arms so it took a long time to recover,” she says.“I eventually got a job tracing in a drawing office for a short time. I hated it and then I got married and had three children in quick succession and didn’t work after that.”

Buoyed by Britain’s most famous retailer, she approached a management company, who introduced her to her mentor, Marilyn Malin, at publishers Andre Deutsch.

The result was The Mice of Nibbling Village and Mouse Mischief, illustrated by Jane and written by Margaret Greaves. The books were best-sellers and have recently been re-released by the National Trust and after a break in her career, Jane has now returned to her work.

“I was never at home and I wanted to spend time with my grandchildren so I gave up for while

“But I was having a sort out and came across all my originals. I always said I would never sell any but I worried what would happen to them when I died.”

She took them to Nunnington Hall, which staged an exhibition last year, followed by another this autumn.

Chris Beetles also agreed to sell her work, which was a huge thrill. Originals now command from £750 to £4,000, though Jane’s most famous customer only paid £5 for her print.

Princess Diana bought an illustration from Mouse Mischief in the early 1990s when Jane had a stall at the Burghley Horse Trials. “I offered it to her as a gift but she insisted on paying for it and had to borrow £5 from her security guard as she wasn’t carrying money. I still have the note.”

It is tucked away with her other keepsakes in the cottage, near Kirkbymoorside and it’s likely to stay there even though the house is not Jane’s dream home.

“I’d love a farm,” she says. “My dad was a botanist and ornithologist and he taught me to love nature, but at my age I know a farm isn’t practical.”

Even so, she has bought some land nearby after a friend gave her two lambs to hand rear. She now has Herdwick sheep, including a pet ram called Jacob.

She lights up when she talks about him musing that “it’s funny because Beatrix Potter ended up rearing sheep.”

Though Jane rarely feels compelled to paint or draw anything but her little mice, the brown, curly-haired Herdwicks could change all that.

“Jacob is beautiful with big eyes. He’s a sheep who likes to be cuddled,” she says. “I think that I really must draw him.”

Jane Pinkney’s Mice exhibition in collaboration with Chris Beetles is at Nunnington Hall, near Helmsley, until November 4. Normal admission times and charge apply.

For further information, tel: 01439 748283 or visit www.nationaltrust.org.
uk. Jane’s work is also in the Chris 
Beetles Gallery Originals Exhibition from November 16, www.chrisbeetles.com.