A comment I hear often from others is “Oh, I know that I can’t draw”. This is a belief that seems to be shared by many. However, it is not a belief that I chose to share with them. I believe that everyone has an artist inside them, if they choose to tap into it.

I was fortunate to experience an awareness of art as a child. I was seven or eight years old and we were living in New Jersey in the United States at the time. My mother had just given birth to her sixth and final child, and her parents came to visit to see the newborn and our growing family.

It was during this visit that my Grandma presented me with her wooden painting box filled with used oil paints and a small wooden palette. I had never seen anything like it before and it felt and smelled wonderful.

I had started drawing earlier that year, and both my parents and grandparents felt this was a good gift for me. There was much talk at that visit of Grandma’s father being well-known Scottish Canadian painter, but that went way over my head. I probably didn’t revisit that fact for many years to come.

Fast-forward another 63 years and here I am today - happily retired with the precious luxury of time to paint as I please. Whenever I hit a creative block or mess up a new technique, I do feel self-doubt about my skills and abilities. I have learned to reach out to my great-grandfather for reassurance. Every time he has helped me to continue. He must have experienced similar self-doubt about his own work back one hundred years ago. He would understand.