EN PLEIN air is painter Kate Bentley’s preferred ways of working, following in the creative footsteps of many Impressionists, the Barbizon painters, the likes of Stanhope Forbes and the Newlyn School artists, and scores more.

Painting in the open spaces is definitely Kate’s thing. In fact you almost feel the outdoors in her new Drama in the Dales exhibition, running at Settle's Lime Gallery, as she captures the ever changing North Yorkshire landscape in watercolours and oils.

Kate was born in Leicestershire.

When she was eight her dad - an electrical engineer - landed a job at Heysham Power Station so the family moved to Morecambe.

“When I was 13 we permanently settled in Arnside - my spiritual home,” explains Kate.

Kate was educated at Heysham High School, Kendal High School for Girls, Heversham Grammar School, Carlisle Art College, Sheffield Poly and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

She says like many others, she first got into art through O and A levels: “They gave me a taste but to be honest I wasn't convinced and as well as applying for a art foundation course I also applied to do an outdoor pursuits degree; yes, me down a cave and rock climbing!”

“Anyhow after doing a year on a foundation course I was hooked but again I wasn't sure what area, photography or sculpture. Sculpture won.”

Over the years, Kate has landed a hat full of awards, the latest in 2014 - associate membership to the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists.

In 2013 she was prizewinner at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Annual Prize Exhibition, and in 2012 awarded membership to the Birmingham Watercolour Society, the same year also joining the illustrious ranks of the Lakes Artists Society, winning the society's Peter Tyson Award. Two years earlier she was awarded LAS's Rheged Prize.

She also won the Society of Women Artists' Winsor and Newton Choice Award in 2008, and in 2005 Granada Television's Portrait Award.

However, she says it was gaining full membership to the Society of Women Artists, London, last year, that gave her the most pleasure receiving: "It took 10 years of trying."

As far as her favourite type of art, it has to be expressive: “Anything which provokes an atmosphere and mood and something which isn't instant and maybe involves a little thought.

“My inspiration comes from my surroundings and life experiences be it landscape, people, political and social issues, and personal crisis.

“My process always starts with random mark making or distressing and rubbing down, getting rid of the white.

“Working over old paintings also helps.

“I work in both oils and watercolours and I often do a bout of one or the other quite intensely and often based on a theme which is forefront in my mind or place I have just visited.

“If I’m working from sketches the process can be quite quick but often I work from my imagination and that takes much longer to develop an idea.

“My process also changes as I develop as a artist. I love to play with the materials and experiment with textures and special effects. Training in theatre design and a hankering to work in the BBC's special effects department reflects that. These playtime sessions feed my skills and more often than not I develop a new skill which excites my working process and moves it forward or even in a different direction.”

As a full-time artist Kate’s incredibly disciplined to how many hours she puts in each day.

“I’ve lived by the code of ‘if I don’t take this seriously then I can’t expect people to take me seriously.’

“I also wanted my children to realise that I was working hard and earning a living in the arts and that having a profession that is often seen as ‘a soft option’ is not easy and requires a great deal of hard work. My son has gone on to be a professional musician and my daughter is applying to university to train as a actor. I think and hope they have the same work ethic.”

One of the region's leading artists, Kate has relaxed a little since she had a studio built in the garden of her Lakeland home.

“Both my children have left home this year too which has also given me more time and taken the pressure off to cram 12 hours work into six.”

For the future, Kate says in her dotage she would like to set up a Royal North West of England Artists Society or something similar: "Just something with some clout which represents northerners in the London-centic art world.

I ask Kate, that although Cumbria has artists that could hold their own on the national – and international - stage, why do few get the exposure they truly deserve outside of the county?

“I think we’re a bit of a lost and forgotten corner of country art wise. Further up north I would be represented by a strong Scottish Arts Council with lots of opportunities and in the south much the same.

“A few years ago I had a London gallery owner who was really interested in my work and I liked the look of his stable of artists too. We had a conversation that went like this, 'right Kate its time I came and looked at your work and your studio, where is it? It's in Cumbria, I said. He said, 'where?' The Lake District, I said. ‘Where,’ he repeated? I asked him if he’d heard of Windermere? ‘Mmm, yes I think so, he mused.’

“I then gleefully told him there are steam engines that came up north once a month. No I didn't, but I so wanted to. Instead, I told him of our superb link from Oxenholme and London which takes only two hours 40 minutes.

“I never heard from him again.”

Kate's Drama in the Dales runs at Settle's Lime Gallery until May 8.

Open Monday-Saturday, 9.30am-5.30pm, Sunday, 10am-5.30pm.