My name is Lorraine - Raine for short - and I am an artist living and working in Oxfordshire in the UK. I am full-time artist and I teach art part-time to adults at our local college

I have been painting and studying anything to do with art since I was a young child. I love painting. It is my passion. I love paint - it entices me. I can't pass a paint tube without picking it up and examining it. I love colour. When my palette is laid out with beautiful colours, I actually get so excited I can't wait to get my brushes into it. Creating a work of art that pleases me (and maybe others) is one of the most satisfying things in the world.

I was born in the UK, but grew up in Zimbabwe in Southern Africa. I went to school there, married, and had children and grandchildren. I have lived all over Southern Africa - in a Lion Park in Botswana, on the seafront in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, among the Gold Reefs of the Johannesburg area, in beautiful Harare, the Jacaranda city of Zimbabwe  - too many exciting and colourful places to mention.  Painting has always been there - the focal point of my life - experimenting, trying to learn alone and with others who shared my passion.

My life in Africa was very privileged, and I thank God daily for the wonderful experiences I have had. To live so close to nature in the African bush; to fall asleep to the roar of a lion on the prowl; to view the sun setting over Lake Kariba as a young bull elephant plays in the water a few feet away; to run barefoot up a mountainside and arrive breathless at the top with the whole world before me; these are the memories that have to last me till my days are done. My head is filled with pictures of a beautiful land where sunsets are pure gold, where animals live and thrive in their natural habitat.

I came back to the UK to live at the end of 2001 after the unsettled political situation in Zimbabwe.

So - for now - I paint on...and on....and on. There's too much to paint and not enough time.