Carolle Fleury

Born in Montreal, Canada in a family of artists.

One of my aunt made a living out of her art and an uncle photographer became a painter when he retired, making amazing realistic paintings.  All of that was to inspire my desire to do the same.

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As I excelled both in maths and art in school, I was directed towards architecture and I completed in 1981 a degree in Architectural Technology.  In those years all architectural drawings were made by hand and it was a pleasure to do so.  Around 1990, the computer era came along and all the drafting became very technical and mathematical.  A simple line became x,y,z coordinates.

As I had felt I had lost the touch with real art, I began oil painting classes in 1996 with a professional artist: Charles Garo. During the following years,  I made quite a few oil paintings.  

In 1999, I decided to take a class on watercolor painting in a crafts shop "l'Oiseau Bleu".  I got most of my inspiration after that from Susan Bourdet's books, an American watercolor painter.  I wanted to paint just like her!
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Along with this need to be artistic, I had the fortunate experience to do the architectural restauration of three historical buildings in Montreal through work, for a woman philanthropist who was involved in Arts in a different form.  This period lasted between 2003 to nearly 2011.  Doing restauration work for such an artistic person, while archeological researches were being done, was very rewarding.

Along with this I have had, most of my life, this love for cats and especially for Egyptian Mau cats since my father brought me two, a male and a female, when I was a teenager. Since, there has always been a Mau in my life.   Being part of Mau groups on Facebook became an incentive for me to do more watercolor paintings, this time of those beautiful and rare cats.

I love animals and nature and most of my inspiration comes from there.