It is only as you look back that you can begin see how you have progressed – and I thought it would be good to introduce some of the people who have been there encouraging and challenging me to paint and create. Above is one of my very first attempts to put a splodgy paint brush full of paint onto paper (aren’t Moms great at keeping things?!) – I hope I’ve improved a bit since then!

I can still vividly picture my next-door neighbour’s house – I knew him simply as “Uncle Max” and from an early age I would scamper round to his house and watch him paint – the smell of oils and turpentine can still bring back fond memories. I doubt he was famous, or that he ever sold anything, and he probably had an attic full of paintings… but I still treasure a painting he gave me, so here it is reproduced – and published for the first time – so thank you Maxwell J Allen. He taught me to try, to try again, to paint with patience and care, and to love each picture as if it were a small child.

My Mom was great at encouraging me and entering all sorts of my drawings into local competitions – the Birmingham Evening Mail certainly knew my address and I can remember winning all sorts of things, which was very exciting to an eight year old! I have a God-daughter now who shows quite some talent for drawing and colouring – and she keeps winning things too – so hopefully the bug has caught her as well!

My art teacher at school is probably going to be the subject of a future post on this blog… suffice to say for now that she hardly encouraged me!

Moving to Cornwall as a young adult allowed me to try an art evening class – and here I struck gold with a fantastic teacher Judi Trevorrow. Check out her lovely paintings here (link)

She was an inspirational water-colourist, she sat wielding a beautiful sable brush (always buy the best brushes you can – I can still hear her saying it!), bracelets clinking as she swept her colours across the page with apparent ease. Having tried – and failed – so many times to master the art of water-colour I know this isn’t the case! But she encouraged her class, with a gentleness and care that was wonderful. To this day I still have a collection of blue glass bottles (they are great with a few oranges for a still life!) and cannot look at a painting of a poppy without thinking of Judi.

Copyright © Judith Trevorrow. (link)

Then I moved to Devon and met a unique and skilled painter, Ray Balkwill. Having admired his work in several magazines, it was lovely to find out that he lived nearby, and ran holiday workshops. Several courses later he became a dear friend, and I learnt much from him. Again he had an adept and gentle way with water-colour, but he also introduced me to pastels and mixed media – and encouraged me to have a freer hand and an easy flow to a compostition- and to always have an odd number of birds in a picture! Boats, estuaries and mud are still some of my favourite things to paint, all thanks to Ray and his courses. He also had a lovely gentle way of teaching, with much patience, and I can still picture him sat in a local pub one evening patiently teaching our youngster to draw boats with a figure of eight drawing. You can check out Ray’s work, and his popular courses at this link

Copyright © Ray Balkwill ‘Rising Tide, St Ives’ Mixed Media (link)

The final person who has really inspired me doesn’t even really know it – but I have long admired and lusted after the work of John Hammond. You can see some of his work here (link)

His books are a real treat – try this one for a starter (link)

I managed to wrangle tickets to the preview day of a recent exhibition (thanks Fr Ian!) and was lucky enough to meet him – he very kindly allowed me to have a look through his sketchbook and seemed happy enough to leave me with it as he went off for lunch … I devoured every page! I just adore his work, and he is the reason that I am now painting in acrylics. I seem to have found my ‘natural home’ with this medium, they are creamy and inviting, the colours are rich and intense, and they are a forgiving medium too. And finally I can paint ‘the way round’ that comes naturally to me – dark to light – with the highlights added last – an impossible feat for me with watercolours!

I have also found that copying John Hammond’s paintings to be an excellent way of learning more about colour mixing, composition and that magical ‘extra’ that seems to bring a painting to life. This is my attempt at creating a ‘Hammond’ – I am sure he wouldn’t mind (and I would obviously never try to sell it!)

The last inspiration for me has been my wonderful husband and his photography – there are so many fantastic photos of his that I am itching to paint from – including this one that recently won a photo competition for the Visit Algarve web-site:

My art is changing and developing and I am now finding myself trying out a more modern and abstract style like this painting below. Whatever I end up creating, I take with me the things I have learnt from each of the teachers and artists I have been lucky enough to meet and work with – and who knows,  maybe one day I can encourage others too.

Copyright © Alyson Sheldrake, ‘Calm’ 2011 Acrylic on Board.