Introduction

The first thing I remember actually enjoying at school was the art class. It didn’t matter if it was drawing, painting, modelling, craft or sewing. I enjoyed them all from the moment I started my very first school. It was as if a whole new world had opened up to me. This love affair stayed with me through out my school years and into college. After school I spent 3 years at the local art college loving every second; and then, after living breathing and sleeping art for most of my life, everything changed and art stopped being the centre of my universe. Its not that I fell out of love with art, it was as if art abandoned me to the realities of grown up living. For the first time my energies and time were taken up with finding work, finding somewhere to live, then paying the mortgage and bringing up the children. There never seemed a right time to bring painting and drawing back into my life. Life passed, my children grew up, then there were grandchildren. Throughout that time there were very few reminders of my time at Art College.
 I kept the head I modeled from terracotta when I was 16 and still at school, I kept a couple of oil paintings painted at college and I had three photos of me with my work at college. Apart from those few things, there was nothing to indicate I had ever been interested in art.

Above;  Delilah, terracotta head made at school 1967
me at Art College 1971
    

Below; Two Photographs taken in 1971 outside Art College, 'Seated Life Study' and 'Portrait of Barney', both painted in oil on board.
Both paintings now lost

I have two paintngs on my wall that were painted in those early years, they are both oil on board, one is a green abstract with boxes and the other is a very crude landscape painted with a palette knife.
Below; Green Boxes, oil on board, 1971
below; Wycombe Mill, oil on board 1971

In 2006 I found myself living alone, no children, no commitments and nothing to stop me doing what ever I wanted to do. And so I joined the life drawing class at Angus College, possibly one of the best decisions I have ever made. Soon I was drawing any thing and every thing. Drawing in Pastel suited me, I began to use pastel in the life drawing class and then extended this to drawing animals, landscapes, and any thing else that caught my eye. I began painting, at first in watercolours and then experimenting in acrylics. Earlier 2012 I joined the ‘Painting in Acrylic’ class at Angus College, which I am really enjoying. It’s a real pleasure to be back among like minded people doing what I enjoy.

  Above, Red fields, acrylic on canvas 2012.
one of the first paintngs I did in the 'painting with acrylics course.

Belopw;  life study, pastel on paper, 2012, Chloe sleeping

Now, recently retired ( 2013) I am in the happy position of being able to devote more time to my Art.

My plan for this site is to have separate 'pages'  for all of my work. Eventually I hope to have a page for Portraits and Figurative, Landscapes and Seascapes, Abstract and Still Life, Life Drawing and finally  Animals. Pages are displayed as tabs at the top of the page along with the Introduction, The Guest Book and the Blog page ( Blog of the Shed)