Lynette Bednall proves it’s never too late to enjoy a creative career. One of nine children from a small mining village near Coventry in the UK, Lynette has always loved arts and crafts. She became a registered childminder so she could be at home with her children and promptly had an extension built onto her home to accommodate a large playroom, which included lots of arts and crafts for the children to do.
At the age of 50, she moved to Portugal with her husband to start a new life with their two youngest children. Once here, she started working in a hotel on the coast, running a kids’ club for holidaymakers’ children, organising arts and crafts, beach walks and treasure-finding trips.
She built a wooden art studio in her garden and started painting and creating. By then, she had grandchildren back in England and decided to write and illustrate books for them all. Lynette eventually self-published and sold them on Amazon, publishing six books in total.
But her arty side returned when she saw an advertisement in a neighbouring village in the Algarve. It was placed by an artist asking someone to try out her latest project, Art For The Crafty. The artist, Carol, had written instructions on how to draw and paint pictures for people who felt they could not draw or paint. She wanted Lynette to be her guinea pig and follow the instructions, create a painting from them and then her husband would take a photo of the results and put them on her website.
As Lynette explains: “I would go to her house to work on the project and we became great friends. Carol is a brilliant artist and even when the project had ended, I would continue to go for art lessons where she taught me valuable techniques for watercolours, which I had never done before. I ended up creating some beautiful artwork, thanks to her. Sadly, Carol’s husband passed away, and she returned to England.”
Lynette continued to paint in her studio and over the years, she has produced a lot of artwork. She joined a local art group, enjoyed meeting different artists, and even exhibited her work in the MAR Shopping complex.
She recently discovered portrait painting and last year painted six portraits of women and children from different ethnic backgrounds: “I loved painting them. I still have not exhibited the work but am at the moment trying to find a gallery where I can display them.”
Lynette also loves art nouveau, and her favourite artist is Van Gogh. “His artwork inspires me as he outlines a lot of his work in black and that is a style I like to use too.” Watercolours are another favourite medium, and Lynette is a dab hand at painting on all sorts of surfaces and different items. “I paint on roof tiles, wooden boxes and walls. I’ve created mosaics out of old tiles and broken dishes and cups. I make Xmas decorations out of wooden pegs, paint and decorate metal tins, make mobiles for the garden, and utilise items that have been thrown away.”
Her creativity ebbs and flows, as she explains. “I’m not one of these artists that paints every day or every week or month. I have to go with my creative moods and sometimes my creativity just leaves me for lengthy periods. I think it has to do with whatever is going on in my life at the time and how busy I am doing other things, like creating an art garden along with volunteers or decorating my house, and creating a beach theme with my artwork on the top floor of my house for visitors to stay, but in my eyes that is still art.”
Now 70 years old, Lynette continues to create and paint and is an inspiration to everyone who loves arts and crafts. You can contact her to view her work at her home studio.
+351 289 478 674
