Instead of using paint Kate Newington builds up her portraits layer on layer, by using paper from magazines, flyers and wrapping paper. She loves the contrasts of textures, patterns, lettering and words that appear in the process of making a likeness of the subject. Inevitably, working this way means the pictures take a long time to construct and evolve.

Kate works from reference photographs that she takes of the subject. If the portrait is of a child or children, she likes to talk to them about their interests - favourite games, cuddly toys, pets, books, music and television programmes, etc and includes as many of these elements as possible in their portrait, along with their names and birthdays.

In this way she makes the portrait as personal and reflective of a particular time in their lives as possible.

With a BA in Fine Art from Camberwell and an MA in Communication Design from St Martin's, Kate has worked as a freelance artist for over two decades. She has also worked as a Film Researcher for ITV, BBC and Channel 4 and been an Illustrator for magazines and newspapers including the Observer and Time magazine. Over the last twelve years she has developed her collage portrait work, making portraits of both children and adults. In parallel, as a qualified teacher, she has also taught Art in Primary and Secondary schools either on a part-time basis or as  an Artist-in-Residence.