Born in Somerset in 1784, without arms or legs due to a rare, medical condition called phocomelia, Sarah Biffen had an extremely challenging start to life. She learned to write and sew using her mouth which led to her holding a brush in her mouth to paint and as a teenager was apprenticed to an artist to help develop her artistic skills. He took her to travelling shows and fairs countrywide to exhibit her work, alongside his, but people were captivated by her unique painting style and quality of her work and soon they were paying to have their miniature portraits created by Sarah.

Sarah’s artistic reputation grew dramatically not just with the general public but also amongst the creative elites too. Her work then came to the attention of King George III who wanted to sponsor her artistic development and introduced her to a Royal Academy, artist friend and soon her miniatures became all the rage. Then, in 1830, King George IV bought one of her miniatures for 25 guineas, the highest fee she ever received for her work and led to her becoming a much-celebrated miniature portrait painter.

Later in life the artist fell on hard times and she moved to Liverpool, with plans to move to America. Sarah was soon be-friended by the influential Rathbone family, who then championed a public subscription campaign, inviting people to financially support the still, highly popular artist, which enabled her to earn her living from her work, right up until her death at the age of 66.

Sarah Biffen’s unwavering determination to pursue her artistic passion, despite her physical challenges, was then echoed and carried forward into the second part of the film, when Roo Irvin visited the home of a modern-day mouth painter, David Cawthorne. There, she learned more about his work with the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists, an organization formed 70 years ago with the primary objective, to help artists without the use of hands to have a career in art and to make their living from their paintings.