All my life I've drawn and painted. As a small child I was encouraged by my grandfather, who was a naturalist and who did plenty of drawing and painting himself and at junior school there was lots of encouragement too. That dried up somewhat when I got to an unsympathetic senior school, where my schoolbooks were always liberally embellished with drawings which weren't always well-received!
However at 12 I discovered that I could attend the local art college on Saturdays, which sustained me through the barren school years until I could legally leave and go to art college full-time! After 2 wonderful years of Foundation at Rochdale College of Art with it's liberal and enthusiastic encouragement of all shades of interest I had to move on to degree college. The euphoria didn't last - this was the time of 'art language' when abstract minimalism was the order of the day and it did not suit me in the least; I was very dis-illusioned and after just a year I 'dropped out' of the system.
For many years 'real' life and earning a crust got in the way of my artwork but a few years ago I realised what was missing from my life and it's importance to me and I started to attend painting workshops and drawing sessions to get me moving again. Now I spend most of my evenings and weekends struggling with a pencil or a paintbrush and there just aren't enough hours in the week.