I am an amateur painter who hadn't touched a paint brush since school until 9 years ago. I was made redundant, and was glad as it enabled me to spend more time with my dear dad who was fighting his battle against cancer. Unfortunately he lost this battle in April 2004 and I started to paint. Oh how I wished I had started earlier so he could have seen some of my paintings, my mum says he would have been so proud. I started doing watercolour and went to a few classes, but couldn't gel with the tutor, he was too mush about himself. I was going with my close friend Sally and she was feeling the same, so when we saw a class for oil painting once a month run by Adan Art, we decided to enrol. This was it, they were so good, we had fun as well as learning the basics of oils, and I gained confidence in my ability to paint. I thank Annette and Adrian for all their guidance and help they gave me over the 2 years I attended their classes. I then went on to attending a few classes on a one to one basis for pastel painting as I wanted to paint wildlife and after looking at many at art galleries I felt the animals were caught just right in this medium. Right from the start I fell in love with the medium and found pastel on velour paper was a dream. I still paint all mediums and feel that birds I capture best in watercolour; land and seascapes in oils and wildlife and animals in pastel. I have a very understanding husband who doesn't moan when my easel is set up in the lounge for a while as it is too cold for the sunlounge, but the sunlounge is where it will be in the summer as the light is marvellous. My aim is to approach the pets parlour and advertise in pet portrature adn hope that will bring in enough work to keep me painting the thing I enjoy most - or at least at the moment. I still haven't got round to promoting the pastel portraiture as I have taken on work - finances needed -. Today I attended a workshop for pen and wash and thoroughly enjoyed it, maybe I'll get my water colours out again. We have a beautiful garden and my husband is always asking me to paint it, but as it is rather large I think I will do several smaller sketches on a large piece of paper, I'm quite looking forward to it and when I do I'll put them on the gallery.