Kinver Artist Jodie, takes up the brush again after a 20 year gap.
We meet artist Jodie Oakeshott and find out what brought her back to her love of painting.
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00:00So we're here in Kinva with Jodie and Jodie you're an artist, some of your work here looking
00:06fantastic and you're just putting yourself out there again now aren't you? You studied art but
00:12then you kind of put it aside for just a few years, what 20 years or so? So what's the story
00:18then? So you went to university? Yeah I went to uni in Wolverhampton, got a first class honours
00:23degree in fine art and then went into project management for 20 years and then had a bit of
00:30ill health and a bit of time off work so I've just returned to making art really and I've decided that
00:36I might want to kind of make a bit of a go of it really. And your first painting back after 20 years
00:41without a brushing hand was of your lad Oscar, his first day at the Wolves, good lad and amazing
00:48I mean you must have you must have took your own breath away and thought wow you know 20 years and
00:53I can still I've still got it. Yeah yeah so 20 years and I just thought well I'll have a go see if I can
01:00still remember how to do anything and yeah I could. Yeah yeah so what is it you like to paint then?
01:05What's your chosen subjects? So my little kind of tagline I suppose is people, plants, animals and
01:10objects, that's kind of what I like to paint really so yeah anything from like food stuff or I've done
01:17one of some marbles, my pet dog yeah and then other animals and stuff and then family portraits
01:24I did a bit of a feature on. Cool and these little cards just fill us in on what the Pantone
01:31cards are all about. The Pantone cards are just they're just colour postcards so this one would be
01:38Pantone red and then you just. So that's so effectively it's like a colour chart card yeah?
01:44Yeah they are really. So that colour would have just had Pantone on it and then the red colour
01:48yeah so basically you're using that as like an inspiration that background base. Yeah and
01:53then just paint you know whatever you want. Yeah yeah they're great great little things.
01:59So what's the dream then? What would you like to be kind of you know doing in a in a few years?
02:03So I'd like to build up doing commissions really and then my my 10-year plan is to be a fully
02:11yeah give up the day job and just be an artist yeah yeah that's that's my that's my plan long
02:16term. So when you have 20 years away from it you know 10 years into that I did I guess you thought
02:22you and painting was just that was it you know? Yeah I guess I thought that I might come back in
02:27like I don't know 10 years time yeah maybe even longer than that maybe when I was retired and
02:33maybe start painting again then yeah but yeah I've been I've been lucky really that I've
02:38had some time I suppose to be able to pick up the paintbrush again before getting to retirement.
02:44Yeah yeah well I mean you touched upon that so you had some bad health which kind of
02:48laid you up for a bit did you find returning to painting it helped in that process like
02:54the therapeutic side of it? Yeah absolutely absolutely huge like you know good for your
02:59mental health isn't it really painting so yeah good recovery time and headspace time really
03:05whilst sort of dealing with you know recovering from operations and you know the mental side of
03:12yeah coming to terms with what had happened really. Well we was having a little chinwag off camera and
03:16in a way it's no surprise that you've got an artistic talent you've got artists in the family.
03:21Yeah so uh I learned to paint really from my granddad um unfortunately he died when I was 12
03:29so he hasn't been able to see he never saw me go through uni and stuff but um yeah so he was a good
03:36watercolor artist and he painted a lot of animals and then my dad's really good at art but he uh
03:42he's colorblind so he can't do anything with color which is the opposite to me yeah so he does a lot
03:48of like scraper foil and pencil and pen work and stuff like that rather than color. So he must be
03:53pleased to see you returning to it and very proud. He absolutely loves it yeah. And the kids are they
03:58are you showing any artistic talent you've got your lad Oscar there and some stepchildren. Yeah so
04:03Oscar Oscar didn't he's gone into agriculture and decided to be a farmer uh although he did say we
04:09should have done GCSE art which was frustrating and then I've got three stepchildren and one of
04:15them is quite sort of uh she's you know quite creative and stuff so yeah she's done a bit of
04:19painting with me which is nice. Yeah well it's fantastic I mean if people want to find out a bit
04:24more about your work and the commissions that you do how do they find out info about you Jodie?
04:30Yes I've got an Instagram account which is uh Jodie with an ie underscore oakshot underscore
04:36artist. How are we spelling oakshot let's get it. O-A-K-E-S-H-O-T-T yeah not easy names. Great stuff well all the
04:44best with your your future artwork and thanks for inviting me express and start around all the best
04:49Jodie. Thanks.