The mini-Monet whose masterpieces made an astonishing £50,000 – with all the money going to charity 

Four years ago, Daisy Watt painted a garden scene to cheer up two of her grandparents who had been diagnosed with cancer.

Spotting something special in her six-year-old daughter’s artwork, her mother asked if she would like to paint a second canvas to be displayed at a gallery and auctioned for charity.

That piece, featuring forget-me-nots for those who had died and bright flowers for those who survived, attracted bids from all over the world and went for £9,500.

Since then Daisy, now ten, has now gone on to make an astonishing £50,000 from her floral landscapes which have seen her dubbed a ‘mini Monet’, with all the money donated to charity.

Daisy’s work always features flowers and she loves nothing more than heading into the garden with her paints – tester pots which she picks up from B&Q after school. 

She sells one-off originals, while prints go for £100 a piece. Despite her success, however, her parents – Karen, a primary school teacher, and Charlie, a project manager, both 50 – say she is embarrassed by praise and doesn’t realise her own talent.

Mrs Watt, from Misson, South Yorkshire, said: ‘I hope when she’s older she realises just what a special thing she has been doing. Every single penny she raises goes to charity and it’s making a big, big difference to people’s lives.’

Daisy painted a garden scene to show her maternal grandfather Arthur before he passed away in 2016 aged 75, and paternal grandmother Polly, now 89, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer around the same time. 

Mrs Watt loved the painting and asked a local gallery if it would auction a similar work in aid of cancer charities Firefly and Cancer Research.

The large painting was more in depth, and changed in colour tone, going from dark to light to represent the battle with cancer.

It sold in 2017 for £9,500 and was so popular that 100 special edition prints were snapped up by buyers from as far away as Canada and Hong Kong. 

Daisy now paints most days, floral pieces with each flower representing a different stage in the fight against cancer.

Her mother said: ‘Over the past few years her work really has caught people’s attention. Although she’s always been really creative it was when she created that painting for her grandparents that we realised she had something special.’

Cancer Research features one of Daisy’s works on its ‘thank you’ cards to families whose loved ones make legacy donations. 

And in lockdown she painted a rainbow of daisies as a tribute to frontline workers, raising nearly £1,700 for the NHS with cards of the design.