Dorothy Ellsmore Paul was educated at Portsmouth High School and trained as a fashion artist at Portsmouth Technical College. She came to Australia at the age of 18 and worked in fashion illustration, as well as producing occasional cartoons for The Bulletin.

In 1925 she married Mick Paul, another cartoonist, whose mother was the artist Emily Letita Paul. With Paul's encouragement she studied under Julian Ashton, Lawson Balfour and and Sydney Long at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney.

Paul illustrated stories in a variety of publications, including the Sydney Mail, Wentworth Magazine and The Australian Woman's Mirror. However, she was principally a cartoonist, producing political and society cartoons for The Bulletin. Paul also wrote art criticism and reviews for the Sydney Mail, and articles on home decoration for The Australian Woman's Mirror.

The biographer, Joan Kerr, describes Paul's cartoons as 'stylistically schizophrenic' and attributes this to Paul's being trained as a painter, although she speculates it may also be a result of her being ambidextrous. Paul herself said that an advantage of being ambidextrous was that it was useful for confusing tennis opponents.

As well as her cartoon and illustrative work, Paul produced etchings and woodcuts. She expressed a desire to be a sculptor, although this was not realised. Her work has featured in several exhibitions and collections of her work are held at the Mitchell Library in Sydney and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.