A SELF-taught artist is brightening up a Wiltshire market town by painting pictures of wild birds on redundant and boarded up buildings.

Tanya Hinton, who works from studios at Bull Mill in Crockerton, began painting the birds four weeks ago, including blackbirds, blue tits, parakeets, pigeons, robins and swallows.

She sneaks out early in the morning as soon as it gets light to paint them on boarded up shops and buildings in Warminster.

Tanya, 51, said: “I’m doing it to brighten up the town. I just wanted to make it look pretty and make people smile.

“I love the place but there are so many boarded up shops. It’s so sad.

“I go out early in the morning as soon as it gets light and paint for a couple of hours.

“I’ve probably done over 50 so far, probably two a day on average since the beginning of September.

“People have come up to say thank you and have told me it makes their day. They want to take their children out to see them.

“Several shop owners have asked me if I will do some for them.”

Ms Hinton says she is a “self-taught” artist who comes from a Bohemian family. Her father Marcus Hinton was a sculptor, and her mother Cynthia an artist’s model.

She moved to Warminster from Gillingham in Dorset in October 2020 and says she has got to know the town very well.

“There is no deep meaning behind it. I just love to make people happy and the town look pretty,” she said.

Justin Hadfield, 57, of Boreham Road in Warminster, said: “I think its brilliant. She is a really lovely lady.

“They are not rubbish. She is a really talented artist.

“People love them, they really do. They are going around town spotting them.

“She is not doing it for recognition; she just wants them to be appreciated and is doing it to brighten up the town.”