Having started her painting career as a botanical and landscape artist, Mrs McLucas’ breakthrough came when she began painting what she was feeling rather than what she was seeing. 

“I was getting painting lessons and it felt like I was getting nowhere with it,” Mrs McLucas said.

“Then one one day I just started painting what made me happy and found out it made other people happy and that's how my happy paintings were born.”

As the owner of Gayle M Designs, Mrs McLucas splits her time between painting and jewellery-making, a craft she began pursuing while caring for her mother-in-law.  

“I was doing oil paintings at that stage and it's not something you can just (get) up and walk away from easily so I needed to find something that you could just drop and go back to, so I started doing jewellery.

“I got invited to a girlfriend's place for afternoon tea and she had somebody teaching how to do jewellery so I latched onto that, then I moved into silversmithing.” 

Mrs McLucas’ creations are available online, at Tin Shed Artist Studios and the Tasmanian Artisan Shop.