This is a blog about my journey to eventually becoming a painter. ( 1985 at the age of 48.)
My very first memory was in a hospital; I had just had my tonsils out and it hurt, I was crying.
My dad had his ever present notebook and pencil, so he drew me a funny face. I stopped crying, when I began to 'draw,' I was 20 months old.
Being an only child and surrounded by ever changing glorious antiques and artifacts every day in our shop, I learned to have a good eye at a very early age. Arm in arm with my father we toured Stately Homes and went to fine 'on site' auctions. My dad was a walking talking education, what he didn't know he would ask; I have never known a more curious person in my life and he kept his childlike wonder till the moment he died. (Asking a question.)
I had a charmed childhood, an only child who was spoiled with love and comfort despite the War.
In 1948 at age 11 I sat the entrance exam for secondary education, but I failed because I had undiagnosed dyslexia, therefore I was not allowed to go to Art School and later Art College.
Sheffield then was a major center for City and Guilds Arts Eduction because of the Silver Industry.
I continued to haunt the Sheffield Public Art Galleries. My favourite painters we the Pre-Raphelites, Tissot and William Waterhouse. At 15 I left school and became a "business woman." My father bought me a sweet shop ( candy store ) and because sweets had been rationed since 1939, I was in heaven
I married young, had 4 children and my husband and I had several various successful businesses... We decided to emigrate to Canada due to the state of England at that time ( 1972 )
I became a VIP Move Coordinator in Toronto.
Late 1985 I was bored, I had no hobbies ( too busy making a living I guess ) and all my children had left home, so I decide to take a beginners folk art course in tole painting. The first simple lesson blew my mind... I thought I can do this! After all I had spent nearly fifty years drawing doodles and looking at paintings... and painting in my head. So there was a massive paradigm shift. I became obsessed, I practiced brush strokes and eventually moved on to me own images in acrylics sort of advance folk art.
In Nov 1986 we moved to Fenelon Falls to open a restaurant... I kept painting but we were very busy so I didn't produce many paintings at that time, but what I had were framed and on the walls in the eat in area...
to be continued...
