Elizabeth De Alwis

Elizabeth De Alwis, who also works as Elizabeth Martland De Alwis, is an oil painter and illustrator based in Boxford, Suffolk. Her paintings, in brightly coloured oils, take their subjects from the Suffolk countryside and its changing skies, from coastal scenes at Brancaster and Thornham, and from years spent living by the sea in The Bahamas. Her painting Breaking the Ice was selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

She wanted to be an artist from the age of 14, when she was given her first easel, oil paints and brushes, and spent every free moment at school in the art room. She studied art at Ipswich College of Art and went on to take a degree in Illustration and Graphics at Brighton University, graduating in 1990. While still a student she illustrated her first book, Tales of the Woodland Harvest, written by her uncle, Ashley Cooper.

After her graduation and first exhibition she travelled to Australia at 21, recording the journey in daily sketches and paintings, and on her return illustrated several books, among them Solo, published in 1991, and The Huntrods Eye. Invitations to give talks and workshops in primary schools after Solo led her to a postgraduate course in teaching art and design, and she taught art in Freeport, Grand Bahama, for seven and a half years. She lived there for nine years in all, in a house on the beach, before returning to England in 2004 after hurricane damage to the family's home. She also paints commissions, and runs painting workshops and team-building painting days.