About Grace
Hey! I'm Grace Murray-Rowley, and I've been drawing portraits for people for the past 15 years.
There are people and animals who become such a huge part of our lives that it's heartbreaking to imagine the world without them.
Sometimes we want to celebrate them while they're still here, or sometimes we lose them and realise just how much we'd give to have one more moment with them.
A lot of the time, a photograph is all we have left - and that's where I come in!
I Draw the things You'd Hate to Forget
What I love most is understanding who your beloveds are to you.
A portrait isn't just a copy of a photograph, it's a way of keeping someone's memory and presence close to you.
I've created portraits bringing together people who never got to meet - a new baby with a beloved grandparent who had passed away, or family members who were sadly missing from a wedding.
I've also worked from photographs that were old, imperfect or barely suitable as references, because sometimes the photograph that means the most isn't the photograph you'd choose for a portrait.
And that's ok!
A Portrait that Brought Herbie Home
One of my favourite commissions began with a photograph that was far from perfect.
A client sent me an old photograph of her childhood cat, Herbie, who had died tragically in a car accident.
She told me that she'd never really felt able to grieve for him in the way she needed to.
I spent time studying his eyes, his markings and all the little details that made him Herbie, and created two portraits for her home.
When she received them, she told me that, at last, it felt as though Herbie had come home.
For her, he represented something much bigger than a childhood pet. He was a source of light and comfort during a difficult part of her life.
This is the kind of story I never forget.
There's a Lot More to a Portrait than Pencils..
Before I begin each portrait, I take a moment to pray.
For me, creating a portrait is a deeply personal and spiritual experience. I ask God to help me connect with the essence of the person or animal I'm drawing, and to guide me in doing the very best I can.
I want to understand them before I draw them.
That's why I love hearing your stories, and why I send mock-up designs before I begin. You get to have a say in how the portrait comes together, and we can make sure everything feels right from the beginning.
Some portraits take many, many hours. I'll disappear into my own little world with my pencils, and honestly, that's one of my favourite places to be. I take as much time as is needed to make it perfect.
After 15 years, I still absolutely love it.
Animals Have Always Been a Huge Part of my Life
I've always had an unusually strong connection with animals.
I became vegetarian as a child after my dad told me that the chicken nuggets on my plate were the same chickens I'd met at the farm earlier that day.
That was pretty much the end of that. 😂
These days, I spend as much of my free time as possible around rescued animals, including volunteering at my friend Lynda Free's sanctuary in East Sussex.
Getting to know cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, dogs and cats has taught me something I try to bring into every portrait, that every animal has their own personality.
They all have their own little quirks, expressions and presence and I take so much joy in capturing that.
And then there's the Other Thing I Love..
Art.
Making art is the place I can completely disappear into myself. It's where my brain finally goes quiet and I can enter that strange little world that seems to exist only when I'm creating.
After 15 years of commissions, I've learned that every single portrait teaches me something.
I'm still trying to become a better artist with every piece I make.
And eventually, that led me to start teaching too.
I love hearing from artists who are working towards making a creative career for themselves, especially when they send me their latest work and tell me that something I taught them helped them improve.
Watching someone else begin to believe in their own ability has become one of the unexpected joys of my career.
Meet The Studio Team
Bailey
Head of Admin
Crunches numbers, cleans the floor after lunch
Luna
Security
Barks at every car and human who passes the studio
Fishy
Managing Director
Runs the show, judges the work for quality control
Chip n' Dave
The Tech Guys
In charge of audio quality, squeaking incessantly throughout tutorial vidoes and chewing wires
So, That's Me..
A slightly obsessive artist.
A lifelong animal lover.
Someone who will always stop to say hello to a dog or to save a drowning insect.
Someone who prefers creating art my cosy studio, on a rainy autumn day, with a mug of green tea with my dog Luna by my side, to almost anything else.
And someone who still gets ridiculously excited when a client opens their portrait and recognises the person or animal they love looking back at them.
After all these years, that's still my favourite part :)
