Toulla started painting in oils at the age of 12 and has been painting ever since. As a professional artist since the mid 90’s, Toulla has acquired many skills over the years. Not allowing any modern art teaching to influence her in any way and as a result Toulla's style and technique remain unique. Her work is accurately precise and she finds she is constantly pushing the boundaries to paint in more and more detail. However, her aim is not to replicate a photographic image and this is particularly important when painting a portrait from photographs as light and shade can be distorted as well as the image appearing flat. Notice the subject’s eyes, the camera will always show a solid white dot in the middle of each eye as the highlight. This is totally inaccurate, therefore as an artist that does work from photographs creating pet and people portraits, Toulla strives to use the photograph as reference only for the likeness. With a keen interest in architecture, travels have taken Toulla to many historical cities of the world. With camera in hand Toulla is always ready to capture images of an interesting building, narrow streets and particularly the local people and tourists going about their day. These images are then used as reference material to create new work back in the studio. Where possible, often returning to a scene of a painting she is working on to take notes and make sure she is happy with the way the work is progressing rather than just relying on photographic references. Figures feature in her cityscapes as she feels it is important to convey to the viewer a sense of movement, narration and life. By painting a variety of subjects, this allows Toulla to keep her approach both fresh and challenging. Toulla’s works are in private collections in the UK, USA, Canada, Europe and has been featured in Artists & Illustrators magazine, Italia magazine, Hertfordshire Life and the local press. As well as teaching and exhibiting, Toulla also works to commission and has painted people, pets and houses. Her most recent award was being selected from over 6,000 artists as one of the 50 artists for the British Art Prize 2022 with exhibition in London.