Her entries in the 2011 china painting classes have won her four firsts, one second and three thirds.

Apart from this outstanding effort, two of her works were selected to be in the Standard of Excellence display, where only the very best of the best from each pavilion class are displayed and awarded.

Mrs Suffolk began china painting in 1979.

“A friend of mine in Gunning was doing watercolours and I wanted to do something creative as well.

“I saw an ad in the local paper for china painting classes and thought I would give it a go,” Mrs Suffolk said.

She then started teaching and has been a member of APAT, the Australian Porcelain Art Teachers Association, since 2003.

Mrs Suffolk started showing her china painting at the Royal in 2001 but her long association with the show goes back to when her father used to show pigs.

When she was 18 she became involved in the Districts exhibit, an association that continues to this day.

“I went to help with the Southern Districts exhibit and I have kept up with it ever since.”

She was secretary for the Southern Districts, an area that extends from Sydney to the Victorian border and across to the South Australian border, for five years.

The two Standard of Excellence awards she received this year, her eighth and ninth respectively, were for portraits of local farmer Geoff Cochrane and TV personality Oprah Winfrey.

“They were both done on tiles.

“I chose Oprah because she is the flavour of the month and I think she is a very beautiful woman.

Geoff Cochrane was chosen as he has “a lot of character in his face”.

“Geoff was at the show when he saw it, he didn’t know I had painted his portrait for the Royal Show.

“He was standing there looking at the work and two ladies came up to him and said, ‘I thought that was you’.

“He rang me up and was really excited,” she said.