Biography

Janet was born in 1951 and educated at Barton Peveril grammar school, Eastleigh, Hampshire. From a very early age she enjoyed nature study, gardening, art, handicrafts and dress-making.

Although achieving high praise at school in art classes she was encouraged to pursue her interest in biology and enter a career in the sciences, thought to be more economically sound than art. Janet continued to study biology, chemistry and mathematics and worked in science for 13 years, for the most part in biological research. During this time, still wishing to improve her art skills, she attended evening classes at Southampton College of Art. Here she was tutored by Ivy Richards who encouraged her to follow her artistic ambitions. In 1978 she obtained her G.C.E. Advance level in art after 2 years of study.

In 1983, with no advancement being available in her current employment, she decided to give up her scientific career and pursue her interest in painting. At the time small oval frames and mounts were very popular and she had the idea to paint local scenes and flower studies and present them in this way. Her art career began when these proved to be very popular in a number of local exhibitions and galleries.

Janet now specialises in painting small pictures and miniatures in acrylics that are subtly detailed with a realistic atmospheric quality. Her work encompasses a wide variety of subjects, with the majority of her paintings being landscapes, often of village scenes, small holdings and animals grazing in the New Forest. She also enjoys studying British wild life, and depicting many species in their natural habitat in her paintings. Working mainly from her photographs and sketches, she then paints her pictures with acrylics, building them up in layers of glazes often using matt and gloss medium to increase translucency.

Janet is a member of the “New Forest Painters” group of artists, and features with them in a book of this title about the New Forest National Park, published in 2011, and written by Georgina Babey. For many years she has exhibited her work in their annual spring exhibition, which is dedicated to the beauty and unique character of the New Forest.

In previous years she has exhibited with the ”Woodlanders” group of artists at Burley in the New Forest, and more recently her work has been selected for open art exhibitions at the “Red House Museum” at Christchurch, Dorset and “The New Forest Visitors Centre”, Lyndhurst, Hampshire. In April, she joins her husband, Alan Langford, for their third annual exhibition at Godshill village hall, Godshill, near Fordingbridge, Hampshire. Here her small pictures contrast and compliment his large equestrian oil paintings.

Her original sources of inspiration were Helen Allingham and the Pre-Raphaelites, but now it is mainly the landscape and wild life near to her home at Calmore on the edge of the New Forest.