Ms. Ottoline Bex

Brisk, loud, once ran a fruit stall. Paints crowds because she cannot bear a quiet street.

Ottoline Bex paints markets, stalls, shopfronts and haggling — she misses the noise and paints it back. Every book is one day's work: she paints a set of pictures and then tells you about each one — rarely what it is, usually what she was thinking while making it.