PORTRAIT artist Alison Burchert loves colour.

And her passion for finding just the right shades to use has led her to perfect a unique way of building layering of colour using a very limited palette.

Working from a series of photographs she creates almost lifelike portraits of people, pets and wildlife.

Her talents have brought comfort and joy to a wide range of people and have even seen her work at Colchester Zoo as its artist in residence.

And as a result she is now passing on her skills and expertise with popular classes teaching her techniques to adults and children from her Tiptree home.

"I do portraits for all sorts of people and for all sorts of reasons, many of them very personal, but having one of a loved one who has died is something I do a lot of.

"There is obviously a huge amount of responsibility involved in that and I really want to make sure I get it right," explains Alison.

She recently completed a lifesize image of Bonnie Hiller for her father Paul Hiller and wider family.

Bonnie died in a car accident aged 27 almost three years ago and the family's pub in Maypole Road has since been re-named the Bonnie Blue in her honour.

Alison explains she worked from a number of different photographs of Bonnie in order to create a unique representation of her as she does with all of her commissions.

"Her dad said it had perfectly captured her personality and who she was because while she liked to go out and party, she was also actually quite shy and reserved."

Alison knows the comfort it brings as she painted a portrait of her own father, Reg Brown, before he died two years ago.

"I worked from sittings and from photographs but obviously being able to see the subject and sit with them is better than photographs.

"I am going to do one of my mum too.

"Sometimes I want to urge people who think they would like a portrait like that to have the conversation with their parents if they are getting older but it is an awkward one to have, I realise.

"But the absolutely beauty of what I do is that I can make anything happen.

"I have put a newborn baby in the arms of a grandmother who did not live long enough to meet them as well as doing individual portraits, by working from photographs given to me.

"Beloved pets are also something I do a lot too and my other love is British wildlife.

"The uniqueness of it is I can capture something you will not get from one single photo. People say it really brings those people alive, I call it a hyper realism" says Alison who has lived in Tiptree for the past 30 years.

Having always loved art Alison went to art school at Colchester Institute, but actually concentrated on a different aspect in the form of commercial printing.

She soon got a job at a magazine in Coggeshall where she stayed for almost ten years but was still creating her own art when she could.

"Then I had my daughter, Natalie, and that was when I started getting back into my portrait work."

But Alison admits she struggled too be completely happy with the colours she was using.

"I was using oils and then watercolour and it just wasn't working in terms of the colours I was using.

"I started to use pastels then and it was much better but still not quite right and that was when I started thinking about what I learned within commercial printing.

"And now I actually pretty much use everything I picked up there in my work."

In printing there are just four colours, the primary ones of cyan, yellow, magenta and black and these are blended together to create all the other tones.

Alison explains : "The printer only ever uses those four colours so that is basically the principal I went back to.

"I was spending fortunes on huge sets of pastels with rainbows of colours. Eventually I came to realize that I could achieve any colour I wanted with a limited palette of nine colours.

"All at once my life became a whole lot simpler, and my work improved," she says.

Using a four stage approach Alison puts on each of the colours in a different layer so that they blend together to create the tones she is looking for.

In her classes she encourages students to bring along a photograph of their own they want to use as a subject and then they all work together, using a video link with a screen in her kitchen.

"I take out a picture of a hare I am working on, which is nowhere finished, to demonstrate with when I am at shows and things," says Alison who will be at the Tendring Show and Suffolk Show once again this year.

"I get children, and anyone who wants to have a go, to put the colour on because although it looks like it, I have not actually used any green or brown pastels on there - it is all done from colour layering which I think is quite a unique approach," she adds.

Up to eight people at a time can take part in the classes, which run during the holidays for children and on Saturdays for grown-ups all year round.

Portraits commissioned from Alison start from £995 and can go up into thousands.

She recently sold the original painting she did of Colchester Zoo's Igor the tiger for £4,000.

It was this piece which originally caught they eye of zoo curator Anthony Tropeano who eventually invited her to be its official artist.

During this time she painted a whole host of the animals at the Maldon Road attraction including Katavi, the cheetah raised by hand at the zoo after her mother rejected her.

They were devastated to lose her suddenly, in 2009, when she was still just a baby but she has forever been captured in Alison's work.

"To be able to touch a cheetah and feel it purr beneath my hand is a privilege I shall never forget.

She filled this role for a number of years before concentrating on her commission work and classes which are proving hugely popular and are suitable for all skill levels.

"I never have more than eight pupils because I want to be able to help everyone individually," she adds.

* Find Alison on Facebook/portraits in pastels or at www.alisonburchert.com