Originally from Faringdon, Oxfordshire, Shirley had a traditional art training at Oxford Polytechnic and Cheltenham Art College where she graduated with a B A Honours in Fine Art (sculpture). At this time she made life size modelled figurative sculptures in plaster, terracotta portraiture and painted portraits. After moving to the north Shirley continued to make sculpture and paintings, exhibiting her work and taking part in sculpture trails. It was her experience of walking in West Yorkshire and especially the deep wooded valleys that sparked her love of painting trees and later led her to paint ‘en plein air’. In 1998 she gained an M A in printmaking from Bradford College. She also started her job at Henshaws Arts and Craft Centre in Knaresborough, facilitating art workshops (sculpture, mosaics and painting) for visually and dual sensory impaired adults with special needs for the following 23 years. Shirley has painted in the Yorkshire Wolds and in the rugged West of Ireland where she has family connections, but is now concentrating on landscape and portraits of people around her home in Nidd and Knaresborough.