Hi Folks

I’m Paul but known from my service days as Dixie. I started painting whilst recovering from a spinal injury, I got fed up of the OT asking what I wanted to do. In a monofilament frustration I said watercolour painting, thinking as I was then flat on my back and could only see with the aid of mirrors on a overhead gantry she would go away. With help a system was devised where I could put a board on my chest, and paint looking into the mirrors. I was reasonable at drawing as when I was at school in the 1950 early 60s dyslexia had not been invented, so most of my time spent doodling in my exercise books. So here I was thinking well this has backfired, but in a less polite way as you can imagine from a serviceman. Long story short I did manage to paint and this went on for several months, till the day came where I was able to sit up. When I did try painting it was a disaster, as I had not thought about it at the time but I was painting in reverse, which looked ok until I tried it by painting the correct way around. Well that was me finished with the paints. Move on ten years or so and I was now discharged from the RAF and was working in day care with people suffering from very serious mental health problems. I had the opportunity to start an art group and did so, finding out very quickly that I had somehow developed a reasonable standard, I spend two or three years teaching the clients basic watercolour skills and developing my own at same time. Due to promotion this sadly came to an end and I moved on and stopped painting again. I am now retired and a few years back my daughter ought me a very nice boxed set of watercolour, I felt I needed to use them as she was very proud of getting the for me with her first wage. Nearly at the end, I now paint regular and last year I held two workshops for National Trust volunteers whom I work with, and a basic skills workshop for the paying public, as a fund raising event that was very successful. This year plan is three workshops as fund raising events, and we hope to have a special event for more advanced painter, this will involve one of the curator staff selecting a rare item from the Disraeli collection at Hughenden Manor. Simple it will be a talk about the item the the opportunity to do a painting of it. Well thar me, I have just joined the forum, and having not done this before feel a bit nervous, hence the rambling on. I and looking forward to learning new things and having someone who can understand my passion foe watercolour/ paintings.