A painting created during the 2012 floods in Bradford on Avon has been chosen to tour America.

Mother Care, by Trowbridge artist Tanya Achilleos, depicts a moorhen and her babies in the reeds on the River Avon, shortly before being washed away in floods.

It is one of 60 that has been selected for the Birds of Art tour, which will start at the Museum of the Gulf Coast in Texas from December 5 to February 15 and finish at Gilcrease Museum in Oklahoma from November 22 to February 7, 2016.

Mrs Achilleos, who paints under her maiden name Lock, said: “I was walking along the river near the Tithe Barn and in the reeds I saw a mother and her chicks. Because of the floods and the high waters it was hard for them to find things. The father was bringing them damselflies.

“I did some sketching and took some photos and started to plan the painting.”

Mrs Achilleos, a creative director, took a month to create the painting in her previous home in Bradford on Avon and used oils on board.

“I paint inch by inch and finish it as I go,” she said. “I paint in detail and have to paint every feather. It took about a month to complete it and I painted at night as I work full time.

“The best part about this tour for me is that the painting is going to Oklahoma. When I painted this I was listening to the audio book of The Grapes of Wrath, a sad story about a family from Oklahoma. In the end the family gets caught in a flood and the baby dies. At this point I started to cry as the same thing happened to this little Moorhen family from Bradford-on-Avon. The day after I saw this happy little scene they got washed away in a flood.”

The artist, who moved from New Zealand aged 15, only started painting a few years ago after being inspired by her artist stepfather, Raymond Harris Ching.

To view Mother Care, currently obn display at Woodson Art Museum in Wisconsin, visit www.tanyalock.com