You mightn't look twice at this little old lady if you passed her in the street, with her old-fashioned coat, hat and handbag. But since being touched by an angel, she has led a magical life.

Miss Smith is interested in cosmic consciousness and alternative lifestyles. She has hugged a tree, revered standing stones, mown her own crop circle, and conducted the dawn chorus. She has tried hands-on healing for her broken-down car.

She discovers, while riding a dragon, that "you are never too old for adventure!" – and she reminds us gently of things we ought to make more time for in our own distracted lives.

Painter, printmaker and art therapist Diana Milstein, of Glastonbury, was just doodling with her paintbrush one day when her now-famous character suddenly appeared.

That first image, "Miss Smith appears out of the blue", came in 1994. Diana kept the first three Miss Smith pictures "quietly in a corner" at exhibitions, but they were the ones which people commented on the most.

One image led to the next over the years until there were about 80, causing Diana to be hailed as Glastonbury's most famous artist.

And this week, the award-winning Wooden Books, of Glastonbury, has published the Miss Smith Postcard Book, a selection of 22 of these delightful pictures.

Diana told me: "I work with silkscreen mono printing, the most painterly form of printmaking, and I sort of blotted this character and it looked as if she had appeared out of a blue cloud, or out of the sea.

"She seemed quite an endearing little old lady. I created a scenario where she's standing at a bus stop and gets touched by an angel.

"That set off a whole journey. It's not really a story. Each image and the caption that goes with it is a moment in time from the life of Miss Smith. She appears to be a very ordinary woman but, in actual fact, she's got a key to magic and has a very fun life. She's got a lot of heart in her, basically.

"What's important is the positive sentiment in the pictures and that they give a lighter look at life. Miss Smith is light-hearted and, hopefully, she brings a smile to people's faces."

Needless to say, there's something of Diana in Miss Smith. "I don't think it's possible for there not to be," she said. "I made Miss Smith's coat, hat and handbag and had been hanging them at exhibitions and, inevitably, eventually I put on the coat and started to perform as her." Diana did this most recently at Glastonbury's Goddess Conference – to which she is an active artistic contributor – last summer, for the theme, the "wild child".

She said: "I got it into my head that I wanted to do 'Miss Smith becomes Jimi Hendrix and sings Wild Thing', and that's what I did. She turned into Jimi Hendrix. It's a bit crazy!

"I suppose when you ask what is there of me in her, if I had a magical moment in my life, Miss Smith is a wonderful vehicle through which I can express that."

Diana has launched a campaign inviting people to send in Miss Smith postcards describing their own "magical moments" to be displayed at exhibitions.

■ You can send your postcards to Miss Smith at The Phoenix Project, King Street, Glastonbury, BA6 9JX, and visit her website which is at www.misssmithart.co.uk – the Miss Smith Postcard Book costs £9.99.