Jan, a Lancashire lass by birth, lives and paints in the picturesque county of Worcestershire.  Her studio is an offshoot of the family kitchen and her "easel" is the former dining room table. She shares "Tinkers Cottage" with Irvine, her partner, her two university student children, Lorna and Peter, and two omnipresent budgerigars, Chunk and Smudge.  Her studio overlooks the allotment garden in which Jan grows herbacious plants and organic veg,  and where she wages a constant battle with nature.Jan has drawn and painted all her life, but her hobby became her livelihood several years ago when her former incarnation as a gardener came to an abrupt end .. her back and knees both deciding enough was enough. She views painting as much as a need as is eating and breathing and, not so much as a job, but as a way of life.Irvine, her partner, assiduously frames all her mirrors in the framing workshop behind his rather unusual barber shop (having comic murals painted all round the walls by both Jan and Irv).  Irv too has always enjoyed art having been a professional cartoonist at one time.  Together they enjoy good food, good books, a good laugh, meeting happy smiley people at shows and, when they are not too tired, Lindy Hopping (dancing the jitterbug).