Carol Black was born and raised in a coastal town in Southern California. Both her love of nature and her passion for art began at a very early age. Encouraged by her mother, she filled vast numbers of sketch books with pencil and ink drawings of plants and trees, horses and other animals. She remembers being scolded by an elementary school teacher for filling her notebooks with drawings instead of attending to her lessons! Carol’s grandfather was an artist, and she was a frequent visitor in their home. “I can still remember the quiet room that served as his studio and contained his easel, the reverence with which I examined the pastels, his box of oil paints and brushes, the various associated smells of turpentine and oil. These magical tools were later to pass into my hands, and I have treasured them – I still use one or two of his brushes!”

Carol eventually received her education from the University of California at Berkeley. Although she made a subsequent decision to pursue other career interests, she continued to make art. Carol developed an avid interest in photography at this time and spent many hours exploring and recording the abundant natural beauty of the coastal wetlands.

In 2003 she met and married a successful English artist Simon Addyman. It was then she decided to resume her artistic journey full time and began to paint in earnest. After producing a series of traditional still lifes in acrylic for various galleries and private collectors in Southern California, Carol decided to turn her attention to the exciting world of publishing.

Today, she takes full advantage of the wealth of cultural resources in Southern California. Carol is a member and frequent guest of the Huntington Library and Gardens in Pasadena, where she recently took a class in botanical illustration and continues to draw inspiration from the vast array of botanical resources available there. When not in the studio painting, Carol loves to spend time with her husband, Simon, and their dog, Winnie, at their home in Los Angeles, and to visit with family. “My brother and his wife recently had a little baby girl,” says the artist, “and – of course – the first thing I did was to make a charcoal sketch of little Ruby! My first reaction to life is always expressed through a need to make art.”