Interview: The artist who paints Welsh slate

Ella Groves

A young Welsh artist has gone viral on social media recently due to her stunning Welsh landscapes – painted on Welsh slate.

Caitlin Eve, from Neath Port Talbot, who describes herself currently as a “part-time artist,” shares her artwork on TikTok to her rapidly increasing audience.

She said: “I’m a part-time landscape painter, working primarily in acrylics. I feel like I’m gradually becoming known as the artist who paints on Welsh slate, and I love that people really connect with the Welsh slate.”

At the end of 2025 Caitlin achieved one of her biggest career successes to date when she went viral after a customer from the US shared an unboxing video of one of her paintings.

“She was kind enough to film an unboxing video for me and she posted it on TikTok and that went a bit viral. And so ever since then, I’ve been completely sold out of Welsh slates.

“Now I’m working on a waitlist basis and the waitlist is also full and it’s looking like I’m not going to be able to reopen the waitlist until the spring so it’s just been insane.”

‘Home’

Since Caitlin takes commissions, she often paints landscapes from outside of Wales, but Caitlin shared the immense sense of pride painting Welsh scenes on Welsh materials gives her in her work.

She said: “My art and painting on Welsh slate has really connected with people and I love that so much. I think we’re so proud of where we come from and the land that we’ve come from – and I am as well – and the Welsh slate seems to speak to people in that way.”

Yet, working on Welsh slate was a happy accident for Caitlin.

During lockdown she began painting on wood slices, collected by herself and her dad from the woods behind her house.

She said: “I started painting on wood really early on like it was like mid-lockdown, my Dad and I would go to the woods behind the house. He would then chop up the wood for me and drill holes in it so I could hang them.

“Then the Welsh slate idea came because he was gifted a lot of Welsh slates that already had holes drilled into them so he knew straight away, ‘right Caitlin can have these and she can paint on them’, and that’s where that came from.”

Whilst she now mostly works on Welsh slate, Caitlin still creates custom wood slice paintings which can be commissioned on her website.

‘Wellbeing’

Discussing her reasons for getting into painting, Caitlin recalled how, whilst she had always been creative, it was dealing with the anxiety she experienced as a teenager that led her to pursue art.

She said: “My school didn’t have the resources to support me, so they left me to spend most of my days in the art room. My dedication to pursuing art as an available option came from the time my art teacher, Mrs Noonan, invested in me. The art room was the only place my school could think to put me, but it was exactly where I was meant to be.”

Like many young women, Caitlin emphasised the pride she feels in being the first in her family to have the freedom to make a career out of her hobby – an option women have often been denied.

She said: “Regarding confidence in pursuing this as a career, I am inspired by the long list of women in my family who, although they claim not to be artistic, are extremely talented at sewing, knitting, crocheting, baking, and crafts in all its forms.

“Yet, they have never been able to pursue these skills as a career or been told they could be paid for them. I want to build a career as an artist for all the talented women in my family who were never told that was an option, women whose hobbies were dismissed as just hobbies.”

‘What next?’ 

Caitlin shared her plans for 2026, focusing on growing her art business and continuing to develop her confidence.

She said: “This year, I really want to find my voice a bit more online so that I can connect with more people.

“I finished uni this summer, I did creative writing because writing it down is much easier than trying to get it out right out loud. And in the same way, painting is much easier for me than expressing myself out loud. But I do see the benefits of when I put myself out there on TikTok and I talk to the camera so that’s what I want to do.

“I need to find the confidence and connect with people online so that they can find me. Because I think there are people out there who haven’t discovered the Welsh slate yet and they would love to have one in their house. So that’s the plan, get myself out there, get talking to people.”

You can see more of Caitlin’s work on her website or her Instagram or TikTok.