Now Kate draws her own Royal portraits!

AMID growing speculation that she has retreated from her husband’s social life, I can reveal that the The Duchess of Cambridge has been filling her spare time by drawing portraits of her children.

In scenes reminiscent of a Jane Austen novel, Kate is said to have spent the summer enjoying long sunny afternoons in the picturesque garden of her Norfolk home Anmer Hall with her sketch book in hand, drawing detailed pencil works of Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

As Prince George is notoriously wriggly, she has perhaps had little luck in persuading him to pose in person because friends report that she has been drawing from her own photographs.

Kate, 33, has shown her work to a few select friends, including one or two from the art world. The sketches have been so well received that one friend is said to have joked that she should exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, where she is the patron.

Modest Kate is said to have laughed off such an idea, but stranger things have happened.

Kate has, after all, shown the world her artistic flare before, when she took the first official portraits of Prince George and Princess Charlotte herself after their respective births.

She has also shown her talent for painting with children at The Art-Room, a charity which she also patronises.

The Duchess, who read History of Art at St Andrews University, has been continuously taking pictures of the children since they were born, but she rarely plays photographer at the weddings of Prince Williams’s friends, as she has increasingly avoided accompanying him to the nuptials of others.

Last week, Kate herself was immortalised in a new official portrait by Brazilian artist Fabiano Millani.

Depicting her with a warm smile and glowing complexion, the work is in stark contrast to her first official portrait, by Paul Emsley, in which she appeared to be grimacing.