Selma Leach

My husband was offered a position in Qatar and for the first time in my adult life I do not have a full time job. As a child I loved sketching and while packing up my belongings in South Africa for the big move I came across a folder of old sketches that I had done in my teenage years.

Coming from the commercial painting industry and having worked with architects, designers and colour throughout my career I thought that I might keep myself busy with a bit of sketching once I got to Qatar. Then the pandemic that has shut down the world turned a bit of sketching into a full-out sketching frenzy and the more I sketched the more I enjoyed it, I started adding colors and then mediums that I had never used before and before long my ‘bit of sketching’ turned into a passion.

I have no formal training and work by my feeling for the subject I am immortalising. I LOVE nature and it’s magnificent creatures and if I had to ‘do it all again’ I strongly suspect that I would have chosen being a nature conservationist.

Growing up I always wanted to be a vet, but to get into vet school in SA your marks had to be exceptional (always astounded me since your passion for animals surely far outweighed your latest test scores) that being said, my next choice was to follow in my Dad’s footsteps. He good-naturedly told me that he did not think that it would be for me ... from an emotional perspective. He is a doctor and in hindsight he was right, my compassion for people and inability to say no when emotionally charged would have made me a very sad doctor and being faced with losing people that you have cared for ... well you get the picture.

So I started studying fashion design ... much to my disappointment I never completed the 3 year course but instead moved to England half way through, in pursuit of love. To date though I do love to design and sew and have done anything from covering couches to making evening wear including wedding dresses for two of my friends.

Life has been my education.