Leaf Cycle II Painting

From an early age I was interested in drawing and painting. On rainy days it was a tradition for my mother to bring out the water colors and we would stay indoors and paint all day. My mother and father were very talented and creative people, but I was told artists don't make money. Halfway through my secondary school education I had the priviledge to attend The School of Art, Ballet, Drama, and Music in Johannesburg, specialising in Art as my major subjects. The school is now called The National School of the Arts. At Art School I met like-minded creative students, and for the first time in my life I loved school and felt I fitted in. Now I'm pretty pleased that I don't fit in! I am still firm friends with many of the people I met there, students and teachers alike, after all these years. We were a close family, like I have not experienced before or since. After graduating from Art School, I began working in the commercial art field, first in publishing as a layout artist and later in advertising where I was trained in typography and design, and later becoming an art director. My fine art took a major back seat, although I still persued other creative hobbies. Eventually, after a severe illness and the banckruptcy of the company I was working for, I decided it was time to go solo. I began free lancing for advertising agencies, mostly executing work for presentations and pitches to clients. As time passed I found myself doing more and more graphic design, building a great base of regular clients. 8 years into my free lance career I decided to re-locate from Johannesburg to Cape Town, where my portfolio was met with great enthusiasm, but with no promises of work materialising. My means of earning a living went from chalk to cheese, through restaurant management and ending up with bookkeeping. My creativity was still being channelled into creating work which I sold on markets at the weekends. Then the unspeakable happened... I lost my creative inspiration for a 10 year period, not picking up even a brush during this time. It was devastating, but the best thing that could have happened, because when I started being inspired again in 2013 I was bursting with ideas, motivation and gratitude. I love working with acrylics and mixed media; found objects, scraps from magazines and packaging, gesso I make myself, encaustic, and various other techniques I have experimented with.