Paula Brain studied at the Adelaide School of Arts and Crafts from elementary studies to advanced life work. She gained a teacher's certificate for painting and for anatomy, and then studied physiology and later religion.
As well as her book Nobody's Fairy, Brain wrote a book on health and beauty, Living Beauty (1964). She studied 'art, movement, beauty culture, women's health, exercises for radiant living and practical physiology' in Australia and London (News Review 8 July 1964).
Brain has sought to express music through movement and colour, creating several dance poems 'of which I gave individual recitals as a soloist and later ... I launched out into teaching and had many productions publicly of the work, the proceeds being given to charity.' (Living Beauty p.14).