Karen Draper has been painting professionally for over 25 years, she has owned horses most of her life, hunting in Leicestershire in her twenties and more recently competing in long distance and endurance riding with her Arabian mare for 10 years.  She is a passionate advocate of “natural horsemanship” and now shows and trains her two young Arabian fillies in New Zealand. 

She also bred and showed dogs, principally the Japanese Akita and she was one of the founder members of the breed society in the U.K.

Karen has painted in watercolour since she was a small child and horses have always been her passion. She studied Art and Art History to 'A' level, then went on to Art College. She began her painting career when she bought a thoroughbred mare and the vendor asked her to do a painting of her daughter on her competition pony. Karen specialised in commissions and successfully exhibited at her local shows, progressed to the larger county shows and for a number of years was a regular and popular exhibitor at Badminton and Burghley.

She studied oil painting, researching the old masters techniques and visiting many galleries, her painting "Gypsy Moth", commissioned by one of her existing patrons can be seen in the Gallery section, another is for Blyth Tait as a retirement present to himself of the six best horses during his exceptional Eventing career.

Karen rarely exhibits now since most of her work is to commission and by recommendation but she is planning a series of oil paintings in fine detail featuring moving horses in 2001. These will appear in a special Gallery section on completion.