The British-born Lawrence said she had "sold more than 500 paintings and made over a milion dollars".

"I began putting my work on Bluethumb three and a half years ago ... They just started to sell immediately," Lawrence said.

"The smallest painting was 100 centimetres by 100 centimetres and I charged $990."

Her paintings - which include landscapes, abstract works, and beach scenes - can fetch up to $7500 and she once received a $40,000 commission for a painting.

Eschewing the world of art galleries and critics, the self-taught and prolific Lawrence said "colour comes first" in her work and her success was "basically the people's choice" - they saw her work online, liked it, and bought it.

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One of those satisfied customers is fellow Canberran Yasmin Snow, of Griffith.

Wanting an artwork to complement a David Bromley portrait, she saw a Lawrence painting of blue hydrangeas on the website she liked.

"It held my eye ...It's big, bold and colourful," Snow said.

Bluethumb has quite a few Canberra customers.

Last year, the company compiled a list of sales by postcode.

The Melbourne suburb of Richmond, with postcode 3121, was number one in terms of purchases followed by the Brisbane suburb of Kenmore and the Sydney suburb of Northwood.

In 11th place was postcode 2602, which covers the ACT suburbs Downer, Ainslie, Dickson, Hackett, O'Connor and Watson. Other Canberra suburbs on the list were Isabella Plains (44th), Narrabundah (47th), Stirling (52nd) and Red Hill (57th).

Bluethumb, which also has galleries in Adelaide and Melbourne, was started 10 years ago by brothers George and Ed Hartley to provide an outlet for Australian artists.

Its chief marketing officer, Jarrod Purchase, said it had more than 20,000 artists on the site, through which 80,000 pieces of art - paintings, photography, sculptures - had been sold including 14,000 in 2022.

Among the artists who display work with Bluethumb are Ken Done and some Archibald Prize finalists including Loribelle Spirovski.

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