Lost art?

Someone asked me the other day if any of my art would be featured in the local Arts Society calendar? When I replied no, because I hadn’t done anything much in the way of art this year, she looked quite taken aback. I told her I’d been writing instead. If I’d said I’d taken up smoking or belly dancing, I don’t think she could have looked any more surprised.

It’s true that I used to be quite prolific in art and, in fact, I used to get quite miserable if I didn’t get time to paint, but these days it’s writing that fills my time and keeps me sane. I even knocked back illustrating work this year to get my book ready for publishing (still waiting for news on that one). I know I’ll go back to it one day and I’m not afraid my skills will get rusty. I recently did a pastel painting on commission and as soon as I picked up the chalk, I knew what to do with it. But for now, writing is the pill I need.

There’s a thrill in getting words out of my head, creating characters that are completely imaginary and making them real, inventing entirely new worlds and making them believable. Actually I get the same thrill drawing fantasy pictures too, but people are so used to my naturalistic painting style, that they seem to look askance at my drawings of dragons, castles and strange little creatures. That’s not the sort of thing women my age do.

Ha! Wait till they read my stories.