Tributes for talented Pendle artist who always looked 'a million dollars'

Although artistic all her life, Margaret Harvey only began to study formally at the age of 60.

She became a student at Nelson and Colne College where she swept the board with top results, achieving A* grades in fine art, art and design three dimensional ceramics and also four from the Open College of the North West for life drawing.

Always drawn to the French impressionists pastel became Margaret's favourite medium, as favoured by Degas one of her favourite artists, who painted ballet dancers. Ballet was another of Margaret's passions in life.

She was commissioned to paint canvasses for a number of local businesses and her legacy to her family is a series of outstanding paintings of dramatic figures, tigers eyes, waterfalls, wild animals and moonscapes.

Originally from Haslingden, Margaret, who was 81, left school at the age of 14 to help her mother in the mill. She later met and married her husband Kenneth in 1957 throught their parents, who were friends, and the newly weds emigrated to Bulawayo in the former Rhodesia.

The couple, who would have celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary next month, returned to England in 1962 and settled in Nelson.

Kenneth worked as an electrician and Margaret returned to mill work for a time, working as one of Lancashire's last ever reacher-ins.

Margaret also looked after the couple's two daughters Jacqueline and Andrea, and her elderly mother.

Paying tribute to their mum Jacqueline and Andrea said: "Mum had always been very good at art and dabbled with it all her life but when our grandmother died it gave mum the opportunity to really pursue it seriously."

Green fingered Margaret had transformed the garden at her Nelson home into a 'floral wonderland' that was admired by many people.

She also loved to travel and cruise around Europe visiting several art galleries to admire their paintings and architecture.

A doting grandmother to four with one great grandchild, Margaret also loved swimming, walking and line dancing.

Family and friends described her as an 'incredible, bubbly and vibrant lady who was full of energy and always looked a million dollars' even when she was painting.