I am not sure how I became interested in watercolour painting -- surely not because of the cheap paint sets in flat metal boxes that I remember as a child, which ran out of at least one useful colour in next to no time? Nor can I attribute it to art classes in school: there seemed to be an assumption in the mid-1970s that we knew how to paint (on thin paper not far removed from newsprint, using bristle brushes having seen better days and poster paint that we mixed ourselves from powder). Perhaps the purchase of a book on the subject in the late 1980s might have been the catalyst? Nevertheless, it would take me at least one false start and a couple of well-intentioned might-have-beens before I actually made the effort to put brush to paper -- some 25 years later!
I hasten to add that I don't feel I have any natural talent for this sort of thing. I have always considered my ``artistic abilities'' to be low to average, but for some reason I have a fascination with paints and painting. My hope is that one day I shall be competent enough to produce something that I won't be embarrassed to hang in the downstairs loo! In the meantime, I still have much to learn, and plenty of practice beckons...
