Chris Valder
My journey as a painter started following a 50 year void between school and retirement. Having selected a scientific career, the creative side of my brain lay dormant.
In addition, being colour blind, led to a distorted view of life – is it green, red, brown or grey, who really knows? Early attempts at landscapes resulted in green skies and red grass, but I soon learnt to label the colours in my paint box and mix by recipe.
Over the ensuing three years the Internet became my friend with a wealth of You Tube videos just waiting to help improve technique, and I rapidly gravitated to water colours where bringing colours together on the wet paper introduces an element of magic.
For anyone toying with the notion of a bit of painting, you can do no better than join your local art group where a wealth of expertise, talent and encouragement is there to help you.
At present I still consider myself a painter. One day I may feel bold enough to call myself an artist.
