I’m getting married in a fairy tale dress ..and Alan the sheep is paying the bill
SHEAR COMES THE BRIDE .. CHARLOTTE’ S BIG DAY
Army of fans snapping up artist’s paintings of her pedigree pet keep the cash rolling in to fund couple’s dream wedding and have made animal an online star
BY ANNA BURNSIDE anna.burnside@reachplc.com
WHEN Charlotte Brayley walks down the aisle in October in an amazing white wedding gown and tartan coat, it will all be down to Alan.
Alan has raised the cash to play for her bespoke outfit, plus dresses for three bridesmaids and an outfit for the page boy. Alan is a pedigree Suffolk sheep. He lives with Charlotte, her fiance Matt and their 19-month-old son Fergus in their seven-acre smallholding in Perthshire.
Every day, Charlotte does a new painting of Alan getting up to woolly mischief and posts it on Facebook. Within minutes, it’s been snapped up.
Thanks to Alan’s army of fans, there is already £1500 in the pot to pay for wedding finery. Advance orders are £400. By autumn, Charlotte is sure he will have footed the whole clothing bill.
“It’s been amazing,” Charlotte admitted. “When I started doing these paintings in March, I thought they might pay for the flowers.”
As well as being a useful source of income, Alan is one of the family.
Charlotte, 36, delivered him five years ago. The family home, between Crieff and Comrie, is his patch. He is a pet, not a Sunday dinner in waiting.
Charlotte stressed: “Alan will never ever get eaten. He’s not a house sheep, although he does try to break in.
“In winter, he gets fed-up being out in the rain and looks in as if to say, ‘Why am I out here and you’re in there?’”
Alan is so determined to be an indoor pet that the family have had to increase security.
Charlotte explained: “He will wander in if we leave our door open. We need to lock ourselves in because he can get up on his hind legs and open the door. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
Alan looks cuddly and friendly in paintings so why is there a sign on the gate warning visitors to beware of the sheep? She said: “He is adorable but he is about 15st. He has free rein
in the garden and so we have to have a big sign that says, please do not enter, he can sometimes head butt.”
(He has only done it once, when he was hormonal, but he’s hefty and Charlotte doesn’t want to take any chances.)
Without the rest of a flock to show him that he should be nibbling turnips and letting out the odd baa, Alan has no idea how to behave. Charlotte said: “He isn’t aware he’s a sheep. We’ve got four dogs and he mingles with them.
“The guests in the holiday cottage next door love watching him and seeing him try to break in. He has a massive following in village. People come up and ask if I’m the sheep lady. People have really taken him to heart.”
Charlotte has been obsessed with sheep since she moved to a smallholding outside Glasgow as a child. Every day, on the drive to school, she passed a herd of Jacob sheep. For her 12th birthday, her mother bought her one as a pet.
She admits rare breed ruminants were not what cool teenagers were into at the time. Charlotte said: “My lovely friends didn’t want to tell me I smelled of sheep. I was really tragic. I did not have much of a social life but I loved my sheep.”
While studying at Glasgow School of Art, Charlotte had a flock of 20 Suffolks. She hit the headlines in 2003 when she painted them with stripes to confuse a black panther rumoured to be in the area.
By the time she moved to Perthshire the flock had been sold or rehomed, leaving her with only Alan. He was already the star of Charlotte’s Facebook page when she got the idea of selling portraits of him.
She had already discovered the power of social media to create interest in her work. “When I was in labour, I was trying to finish all the paintings for my Christmas exhibition. My friends made a big thing of it, this crazy artist painting her way through her contractions.”
Her followers shot up from 400 to nearly 2000. Charlotte added: “Then it came to me. Why don’t I do a painting a day and see if it takes off ?”
They are small, cute cartoon-style images of Alan being stalked by the paparazzi, relaxing in a hammock or carrying several ducks. They cost between £15 and £20, depending on the size.
Charlotte plans to build on his popularity with a range of merchandise – Alan pencil cases, aprons, message boards and possibly even bunting.
That will have to wait until after the wedding. When Charlotte returns from honeymoon, Alan will be back and up to nonsense. She added: “I think he will be paying for Fergus’s nursery fees.”
Find Charlotte on Facebook – Charlotte Brayley Artist.