As fate would have it, when a friend suggested that we take drawing and painting classes together, I agreed that I would love to do that. It would make up for the fact that I turned down a scholarship to an art school in favor of becoming a teacher. She organized it - and we encouraged each other to go to classes when we were tired after a full day of teaching school and would have preferred to go home and relax We studied with Bertrand Lallemand-Legendre, a respected Paris watercolorist and author of a book about a particular method of transparency and the layering of color in watercolor painting. It was a bit more demanding than I had originally intended, but it was just what I needed to get me going. And I began to love it! I have shown at exhibitions here in Paris, sold paintings at auctions, received commissions for custom paintings and I am represented in a gallery in Cape Cod. I am looking forward to my imminent retirement so that I will have more time to paint.