My father was a talented artist and would have gone on to
study at a top art school if World War II hadn’t intervened. My son is similarly
talented and works in the fashion industry but also illustrates books. They
have a remarkably similar style even though they were taught in completely different
ways. My father’s education was very
formal. My son was just taught what he
needed to know when he needed to know it. Both were found to be colour blind –
my father mildly so, my son more severely. It didn’t stop them.
There was always that ice-skater I painted when I was in the
first class of junior school. It was the only one who seemed like it was
moving.
When we lived in Holland for a while I suddenly developed a
talent for drawing some of the intriguingly shaped Dutch houses. I also started
doing portraits of TV personalities and my children’s friends. They were good
by any standard.
Next I started a correspondence art course and then took up
silk-painting.
It all went well BUT:
·
I was never going to be as good as the two
artistic men in my life
·
It was taking too much time away from my writing
So, I let it drop.
I’m not the only one
My friend Debz Hobbs-Wyatt likewise has a father who is an
artist and also a brother. Is it something genetic? Who knows? She’s good with layout,
too.
It could be useful
I’m a little rusty on the technical side of things but I
still have the eye. When we display our students’ work I’m often asked to set
it out and my arrangements do seem to work. I make useful suggestions about book-covers
and I’m actually good with colour even though I possibly inflicted my father’s
colour-blindness on my son. Does perhaps an appreciation of shape help me to
get form and balance into my stories?
Is it perhaps then, actually the same thing just coming out another
way?
Maybe I’ll get back to it one day. Perhaps when I
retire. Ah, but there are a lot of
things hanging on that.
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