Up Close with: Hucknall mural artist Donna Brown

A Hucknall Mum has decided to take her passion for art a step further by starting her own mural business to breathe life into the décor of children's bedrooms.

Donna Brown, who previously worked in the childcare sector for nearly 20 years, realised her enjoyment of, and talent for, mural painting when decorating her own children's bedrooms.

Speaking exclusively to Hucknall Nub News, she said: "I've always been creative, and I've always drawn. When I had my own children, I decided to start painting on the walls for them. It was my son first, he's five almost, and I realised he absolutely loved it and I was really good at it. Then since then I've just painted a few more.

"I just love to see their faces when creating a themed room for them, so not only the painting but accessorising it, the doorknobs, and the curtains and things like that.

"A lot of people have told me I should do it and I haven't really believed them until recently and I've thought I'm going to go for it. I've just put it out there and I've got a really really good response from it, and I think it's something that people actually didn't realise they wanted but actually they're like oh I quite like that."

Ms Brown had intended to return to her career in childcare following maternity leave after having her second child Freya. However, during this time the Coronavirus had reached British shores and she judged that "it wasn't a good time to go back."

She added: "I started a handmade gift company called Freya's little bowtique. I started off making hair bows and things like that and it's kind of escalated to making personalised items, gifts, bags, cushions things like that. I think I'm going to run that alongside the painting company."

Mural designs that Donna has already painted include The Gruffalo, Spiderman and characters from Paw Patrol.

"I've got a few bookings at the moment so I've been booked in to do things like Pokemon, I've been asked for a Bambi theme, unicorns, and people have asked me for older children's rooms like Xbox kind of themes. Some of them I haven't really drawn before on a wall but it doesn't faze me because I can copy most things, so show me an image, and I can look at it, and I can do it to scale. So I'm quite excited to get started and get some more bookings in; really anything goes."

The new business venture has also captured the imagination of Donna's four-year-old son, Lewis, who has started to draw.

"He absolutely loves the rooms. He's excited to see what I'll be painting next."

For further information about Donna's mural business, visit her Facebook page here.