Dee's Art, Experiences & Values

 

Dee started drawing as a very young child and has drawn for as far back into her childhood as she can remember. She only ever really concentrated on drawing cartoon characters or comic scenes, however after a big change in Dee's life which started in 2019 she decided to try a change with her art and challenge herself to do something new. 

Dee was diagnosed with cancer and a tumour which she fought hard against for many many months. Sadly the cancer and tumour were inoperable so having extra treatment was her only chance of beating this awful disease. Her illness incapacitated her to the level that she was unable to do very much at all, physically and mentally, however, 5 years into Dee's health problems, after beating the cancer, she was still struggling with many health ailments as an aftereffect to the treatment she had to go through. Dee had massive internal damage and damage to her discs and vertebrae from the radiotherapy treatment. From then on she was placed in a wheelchair and was left with a number of disabilities.

This changed Dee's life dramatically as she was no longer able to pursue her regular hobbies and passions nor was she able to look for future for employment. At this point Dee became quite lost and unsure what her future held. 

In 2019 is when Dee found art again, she dug out her pencils and some reference pictures of horses and started to draw.  She drew in a couple of different styles, sizes and poses and decided she first I needed to find the medium she most enjoyed then find a subject she wanted to concentrate on. 

Dee started in graphite and then moved on to soft pastels and pastel pencils, this was what she felt most comfortable with.

Dee decided to keep on practising drawing animal portraits in her spare time and by the end of 2019 she was drawing horses and frogs to a quality better than she'd ever done before. . 

All her private pieces that Dee drew were created in soft pastels and her art has grown and improved over the last few years and truly couldn't be happier. 

Dee loves to draw horses and amphibians, mainly frogs so she decided to change her name from DeeDackelsArt to Hooves & Frogs.

Dee's art has evolved over the years and  she also started to concentrate on acrylic paintings and nude portraits which she really enjoyed and made a few pieces to proudly hang in her own home.

 

Other Passions

 

Dee has loved animals for as far back as she can remember. She rescued rabbits and hamsters as a young girl along with mice and she also had a family dog, plus a pony on loan called Dougal.

As Dee grew her love for animals continued and she went on to work as head groom for a professional show jumper and family. When Dee left this career she went on to train to work in an office environment so she was able to earn to earn a good wage and go on to have horses of her own. 

Dee eventually had a daughter of her own and moved from Grantham to Yorkshire to be with her fiancé and start their new beginning. Sadly she was unable to have horses after this move, however this didn't stop Dee helping animals when she could. Over the years that she has been in Yorkshire she had rescued and found forever homes for 5 Labradors, 9 basset hounds, 2 mongrel, 14 Shar Pei's, 2 Huskies, 1 cocker spaniel, 2 springer spaniels and 2 miniature dachshund. 1 of the huskies and 2 of the miniature dachshund stayed with Dee and her family and she still has Moomin, her first rescued Dachshund, who in 2024 turned 10 years old, sadly in December 2023 they lost their beloved husky Bonnie who was one of the husky rescues. In December 2023 however, there was a new addition to the home, little Raffles an 11 week old miniature dachshund and then in Feb 2024 they took in their second dachshund rescue, 6 month old Purdey their three miniature dachshunds couldn't be happier living as a family.

Dee met her fiancé through the keeping of reptiles, and since they have been a couple, they have rescued hundreds of reptiles together. They've rescued many different species of snakes, a huge and very angry water monitor, bearded dragons, plus a few different tortoises, and a number of Tarantulas.

Dee and her fiancé are a huge supporters of reptiles and their husbandry and have a deep passion for them which in turn passed down to their daughter, who now as a young adult has her own home and a number of her own reptiles, plus a channel on TikTok where she gives husbandry advice and help to people that need it.

Dee's Future Hopes

dreams for the future

 

Dee's dream is to create artwork that people love and want to share with others in their homes, all over the United Kingdom and the world. 

Dee started sculpting on the 1st Feb 2024 and quickly decided animals were my future, however she wants to do more than just commissions for people, or pieces to go into shops for people to buy, Dee wants to do something for the animals.

She has decided that she is going to make 200 sculptures of endangered and vulnerable animals to try and help raise awareness of each and every species that she sculpts. With each sculpture Dee will add details about the animal and the fight they are in to survive and hopefully in time conservationists, wildlife rescue's, zoo's, and breeding organisations, that help these animals through conservation, rescue and breeding will get to know Dee's work and contact her so she can help them too.

Dee is concentrating on her 200 sculptures, she will still be creating other animal sculptures too, like dogs, cats, birds etc. in the hopes that one day she'll be featured in a gallery hosting her own exhibition plus having sculptures in local village/countryside shops, making them available to everyone of all cultures.

As mentions above Dee's would really love to work alongside charities and organisations that work to help endangered and at risk animals, so she can make sculptures in connection with them, she would also love to create sculptures for organisations and places like Badminton Horse Trials, Equestrian Race Tracks, Animals centres, Zoos, and animals sanctuaries.  Dee would be honoured creating sculptures for professional's like showjumpers, dressage riders, cross country riders, plus your famous training and breeding stables.

Until that day arrives however, Dee is more than happy creating her animals and aiming for her dreams days by day.

 

Sculpting really is Dee's true passion and this is what she sees herself enjoying for the rest of her future. 

She hopes one day to be able to afford her own home in one of their favourite places, Scotland, Northumberland or the Dales, where she can have her own sculpting studio, where she can sculpt by a window looking out into the countryside enjoying natures beauty while she works.

 

If anyone would like to sponsor or help Dee, to help with her target of 200 Sculptures of 200 Endangered and Vulnerable animals, she asks if you can spread the word about her page and what she's doing, this will help more than you know.  If anyone wants to help out with materials like glazes or clay etc. that's always a huge help and she is always truly grateful for any help.