Heather Maddrell started painting as a way to entertain her two children during lockdown.

Now, she has launched her first solo exhibition at Isle Contemporary, in Peel.

Dorrin (storm) is inspired by Manx weather and it features a selection of canvases – some more than one metre square – and all very colourful.

Heather told Island Life: ‘The way I’ve looked at weather on the island is probably through rose-tinted glasses because it’s very colourful.’

She added: ‘The world is miserable at the moment so hopefully this will cheer everybody up.’

Heather was working as a make up artist in a hair salon before Covid, when restrictions meant she couldn’t work.

‘I was just entertaining my children at home,’ she said.

‘We got little canvases and we started doing abstract art, putting different colours on it.

‘I really enjoyed it. The children liked it, but then like children do, they got bored and moved on to the next thing. But I carried on doing it on my own in the utility room.’

She sent pictures of a couple of her paintings to a friend, who suggested she put them on Facebook.

‘I said “why?” and she said: “Because people will want to buy them!”.’

‘I felt odd selling them so I got them to donate to the Friends of Noble’s, because of everything that was going on at the time.

‘That’s how it started. People were messaging me “can you do more for me” so I thought I’d do it as a little business. Crazy isn’t it?’

Last year she had some paintings on show at Hodgson Loom Gallery in Laxey and at Isle Contemporary and was taking commissions.

She was then asked by Kate Jerry at Isle Contemporary about staging a solo exhibition.

‘We’ve been planning it for the last year but the last few months is when I’ve really been going crazy painting,’ she said.

‘I’ve got two children and a full-time job so it’s fitting it around that –it’s staying up late and nipping home in my lunch hour.’

Asked how she felt to have the exhibition ready, she said: ‘Relieved! I feel like I can enjoy it now.

‘It looks really good so I am really excited and I hope everyone likes it.’

She added: ‘‘I can’t actually believe this is happening. It’s been in such a short period of time. It’s really exciting.’

Heather said that her style continues to evolve as she experiments with different ways of using paint.

‘I think colour is the main thing. Everything is very colourful.’

And she said her favourite thing to do was ‘really big paintings’.

‘I sometimes have an idea and then when I put it on the canvas it completely changes by the way the paint has gone with another,’ Heather said.

‘It’s a case of seeing what it looks like and taking a step back and sometimes coming back to it the next day. It happens over about a week as I keep doing different layers.’

She said she loved doing make up but she enjoys the freedom of painting: ‘I can do whatever I want with a canvas. With a face you have to check they’re happy. I can play around with colour a bit more.

‘And I can do it in my pyjamas with a cup of tea!’

She described her daughter Grace, 11, as both her biggest critic and supporter.

‘She will tell me: “It’s bad”, no mum, that’s not it”. Or she has the opposite: “That’s my favourite.”’

Heather has converted the utility room into the art room.

‘The type of art that I do, it has to stay out to dry,’ she said. ‘I’ve got two kittens and they can’t go in there otherwise there would be footprints all round the house and footprints in the painting so I have to have a room where I can close the door!’

Heather has received funding from the Isle of Man Arts Council for the exhibition, which runs until December 22.

Isle Contemporary is open Thursday to Saturday, 1pm to 6pm.