Laila Kassab is a self taught artist living in a refugee camp in Gaza. She uses Faber Castell watercolour pencils to create beautiful works of art that bring colour to her bleak surroundings and resonate with people across borders. She has run out of colours and paper though and getting good quality art supplies into the region is an uncertain and expensive challenge.

I met Laila through Outside In (a UK based charity supporting artists who face barriers to the art world) following their exceptional exhibition of her work at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. You can see more of her work at Laila's online gallery with Outside In.

Like Laila, I paint to keep myself sane in challenging times and the worst thing I can imagine is running out of colours.

I am organising this fundraising campaign to enable Laila to buy the supplies she needs to keep making her work - both because I love her work and because I understand how important it is for her to keep expressing herself and making her own beauty in difficult times.

With your help, I hope to raise £800 by the 14th of December. Going by UK prices this should cover a large supply of high quality art paper and a full set of Laila's preferred Faber Castell watercolour pencils twice over, along with covering the additional costs of getting the supplies to her in an occupied territory. Our aim is to keep Laila in colours and paper for many months to come, giving her the materials she needs to make a large body of work suitable for exhibiting and selling within the international art market.

Please join me in supporting Laila's work - your help, through whatever you can give, will ensure she has the supplies she needs to continue making pictures. Pictures, which once made, she will be able to send back out into the world in order to earn her own income for the more prosaic necessities of life in a refugee camp.