Penarth Nub News aims to support our community, promoting shops, businesses, charities, clubs and sports groups.

We will be profiling some of these businesses and organisations in a feature called 'Up Close in Penarth'.

Today we met one of Penarth's loveliest artists: Diana Mead.

There is plenty of wonderful scenery in Penarth: from the grand architecture of The Old Customhouse to the brilliant views of the sea from the Pier Pavilion. One person who has captured these iconic scenes is local painter Diana Mead.

Diana has painted various scenes around South Wales, and also enjoys using her knowledge of nature to enhance her work.

To celebrate reopening after lockdown, Diana has made one of her most recent works, 'Penarth Seafront in Winter' available as a print.

"I think being an artist helped me through lockdown, because we're a self-sufficient lot. I was also very lucky that just before we shut up shop, I took a very nice commission for someone in Penarth," said Diana.

"I was able to go and take the initial measurements and discuss size and colours. It's always nice to speak to people personally, and it does make it easier. I had plenty to get on with, and a deadline to work to so I didn't have time to worry about anything else, I just got my head down and kept working."

Diana then asked her client's permission to turn their painting into a print to sell.

"It's not a legal requirement, but I just feel it's polite. I've altered the original slightly and it was a different colour palette for me to work in, which was a challenge," she said.

"They were colours that for some reason had drifted out of my palette. As an artist you tend to change as you go through the years and have a colour that you're quite passionate about and then you find another one to get excited about. You find your work going one way and another. You're not aware of it, but you do it.

"This customer had me going back to colours I hadn't used in years but I fell in love with them all over again and now I'm using them in other pieces. That is coming out the end of this month in the shop."

Diana earned her National Diploma in Design from Cardiff College of Art nearly fifty years ago, but still uses the principles she learned there in her work.

"I specialised in painting, so I did two years studying oils and watercolours and learned to paint. I learned all sorts of technical things about paint and how to do the job properly, things I still do today, to make sure it's a thorough job," said Diana.

"We were taught when you paint an oil painting you should be happy to think it's going to be on someone's wall for at least a hundred years. That is still my mantra. I like to think when I'm doing something, even if it's just for me, I do it to the best of my ability."

After university Diana eventually settled in Penarth, where she's lived for forty years. Living in the town has had an effect on her work.

"I was born in Western-super-Mare, so I can still see home if I look across the channel. When I came up to Cardiff, it was a bit of a culture shock compared to Somerset. We used to go down Cardiff docks quite a lot, and that was just super," she said.

"Penarth is a lovely place. I feel very comfortable here, and that's something I hear so many people say. They feel settled and happy in Penarth. It has a kind of security about it. You feel safe here, and it seems to be full of really nice people," she said.

"I've got a nice garden out the front so when I did get a bit cheesed off and fed up during lockdown, I could drift outside to do a bit of gardening, and nine times out of ten, someone will come and have a natter over the wall."

Diana describes herself as a keen, but organic gardener, and uses it to inspire her artwork:

"My garden could be called scruffy; I'd call it natural. I don't use pesticides or anything like that, which does mean the slugs eat more of the beans than I do but never mind. Nature is there for us to enjoy and life is so precious at the moment," she said.

"It's just lovely because it all links in. Whatever skills you learn always manifest in other areas of your life. I love gardening and my flower paintings go back to that, because I'm a grower and I have a knowledge of how they grow and how they work. It all fits in really."

Diana praised the council for the planting scheme at the Italian Gardens.

"It's a natural scheme, it will renew every year and get better. What they've done there is excellent, it's a perfect wildlife haven. It's encouraging bees and insects in. It's just magic, and has rich, lovely colours," she said.

"It's so much better than what I describe as those military rows of pansies that we used to have before, all standing to attention in little sharp rows. There's always one rebel that's a different colour or slightly taller, which always used to gladden my heart."

To celebrate the 125th Anniversary of Penarth Pier, Diana deliberately incorporated those planting schemes into a piece called 'Penarth: The Garden By The Sea'. It was due to be exhibited at the Pier Pavilion, which had to be postponed due to Coronavirus.

Instead, Diana has turned the piece into a print, available to buy at Artisan's Corner, on Glebe Street.

The shop is home to other local artists Guy Wooles and Steve John, and artisan jewellery designer Sandra James. Artisan's corner is now in its sixth year of trading, but it began as part of a Christmas market.

"I've met lots of the local traders through craft fairs. We've always done things together; you get to know them and then we all ended up on the list at the Christmas Market," said Diana.

"We had a cracking month or two there, so we did it the year after that. Then the landlady decided to split the shop into three, and wanted to keep Artisan's Corner as really having the principles of artists and craftsmen.

"We're so pleased. We didn't know if we'd survive or not but we did. We run the shop on a rota, and the others have been so supportive about me having to isolate, and told me not to come back until I was ready."

"Our customers are so fantastic in the shop; we often get people coming back. There's always super support from customers and from other businesses as well.

"Some of us have known each other for donkey's years, and we all help each other. I try my best to buy from the other local shops here. I try to source everything I use in that way as well. I use a local printer, both framers in Penarth and another in Barry."

Diana is available at Artisan's Corner on Monday mornings, and you can find out more about her work via her website: http://www.dianamead.net/.

You can also keep up to date with her artwork and gardening on Instagram @arty.gardener and on Twitter @artygardener.

To find out more about Artisan's Corner and the artists exhibiting there, visit www.facebook.com/artisanscornerpenarth.