Susan Jayawardena

For years Susan Jayawardena talked about taking art classes without ever quite doing it. Then, on her seventieth birthday, her family stepped in. At the suggestion of her youngest son, Simon, they gifted her four painting sessions, and she has been going ever since.
She had an O level in art from school but had not picked up a brush in the decades since, so she began again as a complete novice. Five years on, she has grown in confidence with oils and feels ready to take on new subjects. She is drawn to atmospheric scenes, sea and sky, wildlife, the occasional night scene, and finds the study of light values both the most interesting and the most challenging part of painting. Perspective she finds genuinely hard, buildings especially, and is happy to admit she still needs help with it.
She has always admired Monet, for the natural, unforced feel of his work as much as his subjects and his talent. And she has learned, sometimes the hard way, that less can be more, and that a relaxed hand often beats a precise one. That lesson landed for good the day she tried to paint several hundred colourful autumn leaves.