THE undulating landscape of the North Wessex Downs, its curved fields, long paths and characteristic clumps of trees, is the key inspiration for the work of artist Simone Dawood.

Rising to the south and east of Swindon, this historic landscape has plenty to offer the artistic imagination and for Simone, who made Bushton her permanent home four years ago, it proved to be the catalyst for a focus on painting and print-making.

“When I first came here, I loved it,” she said. “While walking on the Ridgeway, I saw those big open skies, the wide landscape that seems to go on forever, so different from west London. I fell in love with it. I started painting landscapes – a hobby I mixed with my hobby of walking. Now I have many of the Ridgeway, or places around that, like Barbury Castle.”

While Simone has only relatively recently made painting a full-time occupation, she has already proved a success, with exhibitions as part of Marlborough Open Studios, at Mount House Gallery in Marlborough, the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea and the Wine Street Gallery in Devizes. She also sells paintings online and receives commissions.

Citing influences such as Wiltshire painter David Inshaw, David Hockney, John Piper and Cezanne, Simone says: “I like following the rhythm of the landscape, the way a track takes you though a field, the shape of the hills and the clumps of trees.”

This open landscape is a stark contrast to London, where she has lived most of her life.

“My parents were both in medicine, and worked in west London,” she says. They organised for her to have art lessons with Claudia Roden, who had just graduated from art school herself. Simone was just ten, and said she liked the lessons. On leaving school, she went to what was then Oxford Polytechnic to study hotel management, but did not stay long.

“I met a bloke and ran away!” she smiles. “I went back to London and did a bit of temping, then I saw an advert in the evening standard saying you could earn a grand before Christmas – and this was October. It turned out these guys had found a lot of art deco prints in a warehouse in Paris and they were recruiting people to sell them. We had an area in the A to Z and went to restaurants and offices to sell them. They were beautiful prints – and I ended up managing it with one of these guys. All our agents were students and resting actors.”

After this adventure (and she says she did earn the grand before Christmas) Simone did more temping and various jobs, including a stint in administration for adult content films with Red Tape Productions – “not my finest hour,” she says – before starting to work for Channel 4 in 1981, prior to its launch in 1982.

A temporary post turned into a 16-year career at the television channel, working in the picture department and later in scheduling. In 1998, Simone changed course and set up her own business, a specialist recruitment agency for the television industry.

“At the start it was just me and a fax machine,” she says. “But no-one else was doing it then, so it was a huge success – I couldn’t keep up. All the major channels were clients."

“My husband had his own printing business in Slough – it was actually very like The Office – same number of people, the building was similar – there were even similar characters. He decided to give up his business and to come and work with me.”

By 2014, other agencies had started up and the television industry was evolving again, and Simone decided it was time for a change. They closed the business and moved to Wiltshire, to the house that had belonged to her husband’s parents. With views over the landscape, a home in an ancient thatched cottage, and an airy studio to paint in, Simone finally had the chance to focus on her art.

“I’m in my studio every day, but I do go to lots of exhibitions in London. One of the sources of inspiration is looking at other people’s work. I go to Heatherley’s on Saturdays – it’s one of the last independent art schools. I use their facilities, for printing. Being an artist can be quite lonely and there you have the feeling of being with your peers and people who are like-minded and can understand what you are doing,” she says. “I paint from sketches. I always have my sketch book with me, and sometimes I take photos, for colour. My sketches are normally in charcoal. It takes me quite a long time to complete a picture – I like to use lots of layers. There’s a lot of scraping, and it’s a long process.”

For more information visit Simone’s Facebook page, Simone Dawood Painting.