The first  miniature I  painted,  took  a few hours to complete, the second, much the same time.  I  soon discovered that not  only could I paint quickly  I was  also happy with the  results.  Over the next few weeks  I spent a few hours a day copying yet another...

A few days before we were to start on our Gap Year we decided to  go away for a couple of weeks. This was to be the only major spending for the next year or so. The  desire to make major changes in my husband's  work life had been with us both for over a year, the...

My Interior Design business kept me busy and the work was  really enjoyable.  I started by including my  services as a Decorator, later  changed this to working as a Consultant. I did not want to be the Designer who swept into clients houses and say "We must change...

I had ceased teaching and when the  opportunity arose for us to buy an old house in France.  it seemed the right thing to do next. Invest in ourselves. It was based near the town of Josselin in Brittany  in a small village next to a river.   The French Adventure. The...

Whilst at University, I had a couple of terms voluntary teaching students on my old Restoration Course, mainly helping them write their thesis.  This gave me great experience and made me realise just how much I had learnt in the past five years. My daughters' school...

The full title of my degree course was The Historical and Theoretical studies of Art, Media and Design.  I honestly thought that there would be some hands on work with art and design.  Idiot.  This Course was pure academic. The first three months made me realise that...

The latter weeks of the Restoration Course heightened my fears about finding work,   One of the students had been over to Portsmouth University and said that they had  an Open day.   I knew nothing about Degrees, none of my family and none of my friends had ever...

The trauma of my divorce and all that it entailed was diminishing and all focus was now on  College life. Portsmouth College of Art  offered us the most wonderful opportunity  to spend four weeks on a student exchange to  Ashville, North Carolina, USA.  We were to ...

No money, a rickety old bike for transport,  weekends of working in a café and surviving on a pittance.  I chose this new life and I had to  get on with it. The great thing about being in college every day was that I  felt as if  I was no longer connected to the world...

Fitting into college life as a Mature student took a huge amount of adjustment. Learning new specialist painting skills like imitating woods, oak, burr walnut, pine and  mahogany, as well and all styles of  marble  was difficult.  Woodcarving was wonderful. Gilding...

Being accepted as a mature student for the Restoration and Decoration Course was one thing.   I knew it was going to be hard to juggle family, home life and work. However, the advantage of part  owning a business and having staff, meant that I was in a fortunate...

One piece of A4 paper changed my life forever. It contained details of a two year full time course at Portsmouth College of Art.  The Restoration and Decoration of Historic Buildings. The skills to be taught on the course were Specialist Painting, Gilding, Wood...

One warm summer morning I was making my way to Debenhams to buy yet another suit for work.  I had just had an argument, was very fed up and anxious to get this chore out of the way. It was early, the shops were only just beginning to open and  I looked up and saw a...