Do a real painting?

Ok, cards on table time. I was hopeless at languages at school but my linguistic abilities far outshone my skills as a visual artist! In fact, the only time I dropped below a Grade B was art when I was given a C+ for attainment on the end of year report (for those of you who know me, you'll realise this devastated me!).

But I do love art - I love all sorts of art... I just struggle to do it myself!

Now, for my 50 things, I don't think it's practical to start hacking away at large lumps of rock and trying to produce a sculpture of some sort (has anyone else seen Tony Hancock's The Rebel?) and, as a vegetarian, I'm not about to start slicing animals up and mounting them in formaldehyde (whilst I like a fair bit of Damien Hirst's work I'm not convinced that his abuse of animals for profit (oh, sorry, ART) can really be justified so I think it best I consider doing a real painting.

I've never used oils or painted on a canvas (yes, I was that dreadful at school that it was only ever paper and watercolours for me) and the idea is quite daunting but to produce and painting that I could hang on a wall (albeit well away from anywhere where anyone might see it) is quite an exciting idea.

I do like a wide range of art - both traditional/figurative and abstract.

I'm not a fan of Constable and that whole biscuit tin school or art but I don't mind things that do actually represent something. I do love Rothko and, of course, the impressionists like Monet and Valette. I like some Lowry (though, having been to the Galleries in Salford recently, I did find some of his later work depressingly poor). I'm not going to try to paint in the style of Leonardo or Rembrandt - that would just be silly - but something more expressionistic, like Kandinsky or Miro has to be a possibility. My favourite artist has to be Turner but, again, I think that would be pushing my limited skills a bit too far to try to paint like he did. I also like Banksy...

Here are a few of my favourite painters and paintings:

Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway

J. M. W. Turner

Black on Maroon

Mark Rothko

Albert Square, Manchester 1910

Adolphe Valette

The Tower of Babel

Peter Bruegel the Elder

The Houses of Parliament, Sunset

Claude Monet

Yes, I think painting a real painting has to be a good challenge for me to do.... the only problem is how much practise I might need!