I'm interested in how fellow members started out in Art and how it has changed their lives?

Art lessons at secondary school (a grammar school at that) were a waste of time.  We were sat in front of an easel with paint and paper, told what to paint and then ignored by the art master until it was time to clean up and go.  In my early twenties I became interestd in the impressionists and decided to 'have a go' with some cheap oils pastels from the local stationery cum bookshop cum art shop and a bottle of smelly turpentine from the local hardware store.  Thankfully none of my efforts have survived.  Encouraged by a colleague who went to evening classes I decided to get 'serious' and moved onto acrylics - I liked the immediacy compared to oils, and the water base.  The rest is history, though somewhat punctuated by long spells of inaction.  Reading the above posts, I wonder if reading Look & Learn and the Valiant, as a youngster, somehow predisposed me to taking up paint and brushes?

I definitely focussed on any illustrations in the books I was reading ( lots not pc now😁). Enid Blyton’s “The Magic Faraway tree” - wasn’t pleased when they changed the illustrator! Never liked the scratchy illustrations in “ Wurzel Gummage”. “ School Friend”, “Girl’s Crystal” , Rupert ,I liked them all. At grammar school the art teacher was a waste of time, he vanished into the stock cupboard each lesson for a fag! Nevertheless I was always 2nd in the year group for art ( number 1 was the master’s favourite ). Not encouraged to take art GCE - academic subjects won out, there wasn’t the scope to make a living from art then, it was felt. It was only when kids went off to university that I joined a local art group. Briefly, from then on, my interest grew immensely - watercolour - pastels, acrylics , oils. Now art is part of me, one of the most important things in my life.