Something I have always wanted to do.

So many things,*NanKate*. I’ve actually just bought a beginners’ watercolour set having been to a couple of taster sessions. Saying that, I once bought a secondhand violin with hopes of learning to play it - another thing still on my list. And there’s that book I’ve been wanting to write... Sadly, I have the enthusiasm, but not the staying power.

Good luck with your artistic endeavours!

Hope you have fun with your new book NanKate .....they do say that anyone can learn to draw ( without all becoming an artistic genius of course ?) or paint, come to that.I think most people are just afraid of starting, the blank canvas effect.
I did used to toy with the idea of learning to play the piano but never got around to it.What I did do though, was learn to garden, even landscaping the garden in our last house and our present one, and gardening has been a real pleasure.

I would like to try fly fishing from a boat, but I don’t have the nerve to sit rocking about in the middle of a huge body of deep, choppy water. I’d be so busy clinging to the side that I wouldn’t even pick my rod up! And if I did, I would probably get the fly stuck in my boat partners ear trying to cast it, and he would throw me over the side! Good luck with your watercolour painting, NanKate! It’s a wonderful hobby!

Someone once told me that if I could write, they could teach me to draw. Well, after three sessions, she said that I disproved her theory and I never went back!

I used to play several different instruments when at school and still have my daughters saxophone as I planned to learn how to play it when I retired - three years later I've still not dusted it down! But I might one day!

Let us know how you get on, Kate, I hope you will be pleased with the results.

I have always wanted to build a barley sugar twist chimney. As I don't do heights due to vertigo it will never happen!

I always wanted to be able to play the piano- you know the sort of thing, walk up to a stray piano, lid up and belt out a few tunes !

Sadly my small hands and stumpy fingers make that a pipe dream ( and given my tone deaf status in my family I suspect they are greatly relieved !!) :-)

How lovely NanKate . When do you plan on starting?

I have always wanted to cut somebodies hair and pull a pint of beer ?!

I always wanted to be able to just sit and read or watch dramas on TV. Guess what? Now I can! I feel I'm grown up enough to do what I want when I want. Retirement bliss.

You must show us your finished sketch NanKate I'm sure you will do well with your project.
I would love to join a choir but I would have to placed well at the back so no one could tell it was me as I can't hold a tune at all.

I’d love to do wild swimming and I’ve actually got a wet suit, but apart from swimming in some ( warm ) lakes in Italy I haven’t managed to do any in cold U.K. waters. It’s on my to do list.

I'll be interested to know how you get on, NanKate!

I was painfully useless at art at school - used to dread it and really envy girls who could draw ponies (that looked like ponies!) all over their rough books. I couldn't draw a lifelike pony to save my life. And still couldn't to save my little Gdcs!

I've had people insist that I could learn if I put my mind to to it (never mind the art teacher who evidently thought I just wasn't trying) , but not like that, out of my head, I couldn't, though I might be able to manage a just-about passable still life of something right in front of me.

To me it's like telling someone tone deaf that they could sing in tune if they really tried.

One thing I did always want to do, was take up the piano again. Having passed grade 2 at the age of 10 and barely touched a piano since, I virtually had to start again from scratch after I retired.

That was some years ago - I'm now playing grade 5/6 level,pieces, and my latest challenge is Chopin's Nocturne in E Flat major, which has been set for grade 7 so daunting, but not too dreadfully so.
When I started again I never even dreamt of getting anything like this far, so I do hope you find the same with your drawing!

I have always wanted to paint watercolours. I not only don’t have any talent I can’t draw and have no sense of colour or perspective.

Thanks ladies I will let you know how I get on. It will be pencil drawings at first, watercolours are not for me yet. I will be doing it surreptitiously so it could take a while. I fancy then moving onto coloured chalks.

Witzend I played Chopin's Nocturne about 60 years ago. It was just lovely music. Enjoy your playing.

Any sculptors amongst us ?

I would love to be let loose on a full drum kit in a soundproof room for several hours, with some jazz music missing the drum parts, plus maybe other types of music to add the drum to. I have never done any drumming in my life so would need a bit of tuition first as to how to make all the different sounds.

crystaltips* I have always wanted to do wild swimming but naked. No wet suit for me. Doubt I ever will now though as I am nearly 75 . Ah well. !

I wish I was good at something - anything , but I'd really love to be able to make something, with the sewing machine my husband bought last December - he's used it, once, but it's just taking up room on the table...

I can picture you sitting in a field wearing a straw hat and a pretty floaty dress on a warm sunny summer's day with your easel, sketching the wild flowers swaying in the breeze.
A new artist in the making I wonder?
Drawing and painting is a lovely hobby. I used to be good at art and was told by my art teacher that I should have stayed on at school and taken art exams. My two older brothers used to be really good at drawing and have lovely handwriting. Sadly the only paintbrush I hold now is for home decorating.
I hope you'll get some pleasure with your new venture. Can't wait to see your first masterpiece

I want to run, but every time I start, I realize I hate it, then injury sidelines me!

I would love to learn to swim, however, having a few scary moments in deep water where my feet couldn't touch the bottom, I don't think I ever will learn.
I played the flute when I was about 12. I got a flute a few years ago and can't seem to get a single note out of it ?
I can sew pretty well but don't enjoy it much.
Mostly I like to be outside doing yard work, creating beauty spots out of bare areas. I should have studied horticulture.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201906/medium-906704-my-sculpture--time-circle.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201906/medium-160373-clarice-cliff-teapot.jpg

Yes, I was a sculptor and painter in all mediums, carver and potter (I loved making Clarice Cliff replicas.)

Here's one of my sculptures; it's in Cornwall and called Time Circle. You stand in the middle and your shadow falls on one of the slabs which have Roman numerals incised into them. The caption under the title says, 'You are time itself'.

I've done most of the things listed here (including cutting hair and pulling pints.) The one thing I cannot do is play piano.

I very much wanted to when I was younger and was offered a free piano but my parents wouldn't agree to it.
We lived in a small terraced house and I suppose they didn't want to tedium of constant scales every night!
I can play a recorder and mouth organ though.

What a lovely Time Circle BradfordLass. I adore Clarice Cliff work and all the vibrant colours.

You paint a brilliant picture in my mind Sharon of sketching in the outdoors.

I started the book last night and made sure I didn’t do my usual skim reading but took in the helpful, simple advice. I then did the first exercise of just putting lines on a page and seeing the difference in the result with the thinness and thickness and lightness and darkness dependent on the pressure of the pencil. Today I will be buying a couple of pencils recommended. I also sketched an Art Nouveau style vase I have and was surprised at the positive result.

Does anyone else feel ready to take up the challenge and have a go at something they have always wanted to do ?

Good luck NanKate I can sketch a little, you would certainly know what it is but would love to be better.

What I've always wanted to be able to do is sing in tune. I so envy people who have beautiful singing voices. If I could accompany myself on the guitar, even better.

Sometimes the faster you try and get something down on paper, the more effective it can be. I made this scruffy little sketch on the back of a piece of paper I was writing a list on. It is GS and now DH putting decorations on the Christmas tree. It just seems to sum up the scene perfectly. I have tried to replicate it several times but it never seems to come out right.

Don’t know where the ‘now DH’ came from! He’s always been DH.