BBC Star Portraits

The whole Star Portraits experience was very exciting. I wrote to Hotbed Media in Summer 2004 enclosing samples of my work, in the hope that I might be chosen as one of the artists to appear in the second series.

In September I received the final phone call confirming that I had been selected. The programme was to be filmed in October. Time passed quickly and soon I was flying to Belfast for the first stage of the portrait. From the beginning everyone involved, without exception, was very supportive and encouraging, this made the whole experience a lot easier to deal with.

The most nerve racking part was waiting to actually start the painting. We arrived at Stormont castle at 9am, it was 11am before it was revealed that Mo Mowlam was to be our model. I was surprised but delighted and looked forward to getting started.

Mo Mowlam was a great model, lovely to paint and very down to earth. I was reasonably happy with the progress by the end of the first day and left with a camera full of photos to work from.

The following week Rolf Harris arrived at the high school, for my work in progress interview, causing great excitement.

He is as good-natured and genuine in the flesh as he appears on TV.

The second stage over, now I just had to get the painting finished in time.

My husband took over all duties at home, leaving me to work each day into the early hours.

When painting Mo's portrait, I tried to capture the quality of each individual area of her face. Setting down the shape of every subtle change of colour with carefully applied layers of paint.

By the end of the week I was satisfied that I had done my best, it was a great relief to pack the painting up and head off to Kent for the reveal.

I loved Rob and Robbies portraits. Mo had a difficult decision to make. When she chose mine I felt honoured and a bit bewildered. It was hard to believe, it's still sinking in really.