My world as an artist and how I got there just might interest lots of folks. I am asked over and over again, how did you learn to paint? Well, I have done lots of things in my life and had several different types of jobs, but never was an artist. As close as I ever got to painting was in art class in high school and we will not say how long ago that was!!!!!!! But I always did have the patience and natural talent to do several things like, crocheting, sewing and doing anything with my hands. When I reached my midlife time in my life, I had some medical problems casused by high stress, pressure and tension from life's many problems I had along the way, so I had to find a way to reduce the stress and control my life in a less stressful lifestyle. At the time this was all happening, there were severl paintings on the public television stations and I watched all of them with interest. My husband said to me one day, why don't you try some painting on your own and he supplied me with paints, brushes etc and I was on a roll. Needless to say, it did take a lot of patience and practice, practice and more practice. Lots of trial and error, and believe me more error than trial at the beginning. I got some painting books from these tv artists and gradually started trying to paint the way some of them showed on the programs, but you know, it is not good to just do what they do, they show you the how, why and when and you are to do some of your own creative paintings. That was 22 years ago and now I have come a long way, painting animals, which was very hard for me to learn. I first loved to paint country scenery, I always said, "God did not make a perfect tree, but he did create perfect animals." So cannot paint a pig and expect it to look like a horse. And at the same time you cannot learn to paint a flower with one blob of paint and not learn how to paint the petals. I tried painting with water based paints when I first started, that was to hard to paint, it dried too fast for the way I wanted to paint. It also did not look realistic to me, so on I went to oil paints. Now, I am here to tell you that was very different, you can make a pile of mud real fast with oil paints, if you go over your design to often, you will just wipe if out completely and it will look horrible. But I was determined this was to be my medium, oils. Being very persistent and patient after about 2 years, I finally tried my first craft show with a few things that I painted. And the rest is history, I just kept trying new things and new designs and sometimes surprised myself with the end result. So I am here to tell you, that no matter what age you are, what your circumstances are, you too can learn to paint. I tried many different things to paint on, first for all my practicing, I ask family and friends for their junk, metal or wood, and tried them all. Then I had to experiment with wood stains and sealers. Metal such as coffee pots, fry pans, old trays etc, I had to learn how to handle the metal, cleaning, priming etc. And then the sealer for the metal that would not ruin my artwork, it is all a learning game and even today I am always looking for something different. My favorite things now to do painting on are the saws, milk cans, sawblades and the canvas paintings. I hope this e-book will give you the encouragement you need to try painting. Start slow and it is possible to teach yourself to paint. My personel experience is that "God took a bad thing(My Stress) and turned it into something positive and gave me the talent to do so."