About Naomi Hawkins
Biography
Growing up, naomi was always exposed to the arts and free to express creativity from an early age.
Her love of horses also started early, and at the age of eight she started riding lessons at a local stables. The love of riding and being around the ponies just inspired Naomi to try and capture the beauty of them in her drawings and Art.
After High School Naomi studied at Great Yarmouth FE college and completed a two year diploma in interdisciplinary in Art and design with an overall distinction.
In 2000 Naomi began a BA in model making at Bournemouth art institute, But came home after the first semester knowing it wasn't for her.
Naomi took a year out of education to rethink which direction she wanted her career to go. During this year Naomi was bought her first horse which she still has today and has become the subject of many of Naomi’s paintings and drawings. Naomi decided pursue her love of animals as a career, and enrolled in a animal management diploma at Otley College Suffolk. As part of the course Naomi started work experience at Africa Alive wildlife park in Suffolk and a job opportunity subsequently opened up to become a full time zoo keeper. Naomi's art took a back seat during this time while she worked with exotic animals at the Zoo including lemurs, Rhinos and Fossas were among her favourites.
In 2005 Naomi left the zoo and became a mum, and it was during this time Naomi picked up the pencils and started sketching when ever she had a moment. It wasn't until Naomi became mum to her second daughter she started to take her art more seriously and after joining Facebook, she was inspired by other artists around the world and with lots of encouragement from friends and family, Naomi combined her love of animals and art and sold her first piece of artwork in 2011.
Since then, Naomi's work has grown in popularity and in 2013 Naomi setup her very own Facebook page and now has a following of some 6500 people from around the world. Naomi has sold artwork on an international scene with collectors in the USA, Canada, Europe and Australia.
Naomi’s work…
Naomi mainly uses pencil pastels on velvet card giving her work great depth and colour. And it is through this combination of media that Naomi’s talent for capturing detail and definition can clearly be seen. Many hours go into each piece and it is not uncommon for Naomi to be found working until the early hours of the morning. It takes real passion, enthusiasm and dedication to create the level of detail which gives each piece life so realistic, some have described the viewing experience saying they want to ‘reach out to touch it’. Naomi is always striving for realism and capturing the majestic spirit of each animal she draws.
