Born in South Wales in 1952, and brought up in a South Yorkshire mining village, Gwyn eventually moved to study Illustration at Manchester Polytechnic in 1976. After graduating she joined the prestigious London Illustration Agency, Artist Partners, and spent many years as a successful, bookcover artist, painting bookjackets for authors such as Catherine Cookson, Maeve Binchy, Laurie Lee, D.H. Lawrence, Agatha Christie, the list is endless. She remembers these as very happy, fulfilling years, and still maintains strong links with Artist Partners. Recent years have found her spending more and more time persuing her own interests, rather than following an art editor's brief. Always a passionate figurative artist, Gwyn became drawn to the theme of rehearsals: students at the Royal Northern College of Music, ballet dancers from The Northern Ballet School, or infants doing a Nativity play, any form of rehearsal was potentially of interest.