How I Started My Art Journey

On a damp January in 2022, I had just moved my daughter into her student accommodation in London. While waiting for her to unpack - I wandered into the wonderfully charming L Cornelissen & Son on Great Russell Street. Amongst the bottles of brilliantly coloured pigments and selection of gorgeous papers, I felt inspired and decided that my new year’s resolution would be to try and tap into my creativity. I walked out of there with a sketchbook, putty rubber, rag paper and some paint brushes.

Not long after, I started drawing ands overtaken by the most delightful compulsion - I was drawing, playing with watercolours and ink, sewing on painted cloth, cutting linomats to make prints and zealously seeking out other artists on social media to see what I could learn.

Three years later, I am continuing to play and explore and have summoned the courage to call myself an artist. There is still so much for me to learn and so many more skills to grow and finesse but coming to art later in life has been a wonderful surprise.

In the last few weeks, Instagram and Facebook and I are on the verge of a messy break up. I was hacked in November last year and since recovering my accounts I’ve had unending problems with unwarranted suspensions for “breaches” to community standards which has led to them finally booting me out and disabling my accounts. I am still trying to recover or at least start new accounts but the systems are determined to deny my efforts. I love instagram but it doesn’t look good at the moment. This has underlined to me the importance of having a more secure and permanent place to record my journey, show my art and find my people.

So, here I am, embarking on a new learning opportunity and setting up my own website and blog. As I frequently say to myself - never too old to give it a go!