As part of our four-week special leading up to the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death the Echo spoke with self-taught artist Sue Barnfield, who painted a portrait of “the People’s Princess”.

Sue, who painted her portrait of Diana as a touching tribute, said: “Portraits are my preference anyway, but I think she’s beautiful.

“It took me a while to decide which pose to paint, but I decided on this one because it more modern and probably one of the more recent photographs that was taken of her.

“I wanted it to be just her, her face and her short hair, her as a normal person rather than a royal. Just ordinary Diana. She was a joy to paint.”

Sue’s portrait of Diana is one of the many paintings and striking celebrity portraits on display at the gallery, within the Eastgate Shopping Centre in Basildon.

Sue shared her thoughts on the Princess, adding: “I think what made her beautiful was her good heart, it shone through her face.

“Her specific features weren’t flawless. I mean she had quite a large nose and she was at times too thin, but she had beautiful eyes, they really were, and a warm smile.”

Co-founder of the art gallery, Vin Harrop, was a senior executive at the BBC at the time of Diana’s death.

He praised Sue’s work and said her portrait of the Princess was “very striking”

Speaking of the Princess’s death, Sue said: “It had a profound effect on me, I’ve got to say.

“As and older mum with a new baby I was awake when the news came.

“It was too horrific for words.

“You felt a sort of anger at first, how could this have happened? Then an acute sadness.”

Sue said she remembered looking at her 18-month-old daughter at the time and thinking that she will never know of the Princess, the impact that she made on the world, or the compassion she had.

“Plus Diana would never see her sons grow up and or be aware of how they’ve turned out.

“She’s never seen her grandchildren. I’m a royalist, I like the royal family.

“I didn’t think badly of them, but I didn’t think Prince Charles was quite right in how he treated her.

“It’s so many things really about the death of her and what she would have achieved if she hadn’t died that night in Paris.

“I think she always gave off a feeling that she was one of us, she was royal, she was HRH, but she was just like any of us.

“In reality, she wasn’t but that’s how she made people feel.”

Sue felt strongly that Diana stood up for the people and she related to “us”.

She added: “I mean that day, everyone remembers the words, I think it was Tony Blair who said it, that she was the people’s princess, which was a little bit corny at the time, but it was true and I think that what reached out to people so much.”

At the age of 30 Sue went to night school to study for an A-Level in Art, after a number of years working in the banking and IT industry in London. She left her job to pursue a career in art and has never looked back.

The mum-of-one, who lives in Laindon with husband Jim and teenage daughter Georgia, has been displaying her work in Eastgate Art Gallery, Basildon, since it opened in 2011.

To see more of Sue’s artwork visit flickr.com/photos/jisuge