Front Cover: Peter Clarkson

I’ve been an amateur painter for thirty years.

I began with adult education classes. At the end of the first term, they wanted to throw me out as I was so inept. However I persevered and went on residential courses in the UK and abroad.

Some of them were very bad. A participant on one course died between the morning and afternoon sessions. At another there was a dead dog in the swimming pool. In Tuscany, pictures were stolen during the lunch break [including mine so I must have improved].

In spite of this, painting in groups is great, not just sharing of ideas, but the [usually] cheerful socialising.

Eventually, I found a teacher who taught me how to really see, how to interpret, how to imagine and above all about the magic of colour, and this is what my picture on the cover is about. Shapes and gorgeous colours.

Painting is exciting. Try it. Do it now.

Peter Clarkson