I supposed I started to paint like all other children , scribbling and daubing my precious pictures full of secret meanings that no adult could understand. My grandfather was a professional photographer and by the age of 7 he was teaching me about light and shade and perspective. How lucky was that ? At secondary school Art was the subject I liked best but I was persuaded, I suspect like a lot of budding artists to choose a more stable and less competitive career, So I became a drama teacher and as a student learnt about set and costume design,set building and painting. As a tyro working at Southampton's Nuffield Theatre I worked with biggest brush available painting backdrops. It was great! For the next twenty years I next worked in schools, with youth theatre, community groups and spent every summer working on open-air Shakespeare productions, designing or directing and sometimes even acting. Finally I ended up working for Hampshire County Council' Education Advisory Service and running my own drama studio. In preparation for retirement I studied watercolour part time,. The only course still recruiting The change to small brushes and pieces of paper was a bit of a culture shock but I cannot thank my tutor there enough for the grounding she gave me in this difficult medium. And so in 1997 I and my husband moved to France and you'll have to wait now for next installment.