I AM artistic...I think...

Stu has such blind faith in me. He believes in my artistic ability, even after I tried to copy Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' and ended up with a canvas full of conflicting colours of a palette that might be called 'babies excrement'.

Since he believes in me, I have no choice but to believe in myself.

For our 200 year old stone house, I have visions of painting our walls with a rustic effect. Stu agreed, saying that I would do a 'beautiful job' of the painting.

It would be easy. After all, I'd watched a video tape on creating textures at the hardware shop.

So I purchased a natural sponge at great expense (EUR 15!) and prepared the walls in the library with the 'white paint for interior walls' that was already in our stock at home.

Since I was eager to create my artistic effect, I was dipping my dampened sponge into the coloured paint almost before the walls had dried.

My colour had come from my artist's box that I normally use for canvases. Unfortunately, my stocks are a little low so I only have the primary colours. However, I was blindly confident in my ability to mix colours so I sat down at the kitchen table with a plastic lid from a container and my five primary colours and set about mixing.

My first colour was along the lines of my 'Sunflowers' attempt. My second colour was a pink that might be appropriate for a 5 year old girl's bedroom. My third colour might be useful during times of war as it was somewhere between khaki and purple.

After spending copious time on blending (5 minutes), I decided to try the second and third colours. They might look better on the wall.

I gathered my sample colours, dashed over to the house and bounded up the stairs. My confidence was blown out of all proportion.

I dipped my dampened sponge into the first colour, then spotted and stroked the white wall with wild abandon.

When I stood back to appreciate the new look, all I saw was a blotchy pink mess that appeared to stick to my perfect white wall like some sort of alien mould.

I tried the next colour.

But the khaki/purple splotches simply made the wall look like the side of an army tanker!

I panicked.

Maybe both colours would be better if they were blended? I dabbed the pink over the khaki/purple and the khaki-purple over the pink.

No, they were not better. In fact, they were far worse...far worse...

Stu was in the next room installing a bathroom cabinet with the utmost care. He wouldn't be making any emotional choices on colour and he would not be acting rashly in any way.

'How are you going?', he called to me.

'OK...'. No matter how hard I tried, my reply tapered off to a wobbly murmur. My heart was beating rapidly. If the sweat on my nervous skin had a colour, I would have looked like my blotchy wall. I tried to think of something else I could say that might discourage him from peering around the corner. Nothing.

I had to work fast. I had to obliterate my mess before Stu came into the library to see my 'beautiful job'.

I grabbed my roller which was still loaded with white paint and drove it over the coloured spots like a drug-deranged madman on a rampage.

The first coat didn't colour the spots! And it had to dry before I could put another coat on!

I needed time. I could hear his footsteps. I didn't have time. I heard the footsteps stop. I looked up to see Stu's face in the doorway.

'That looks good', he said, always supportive.

'I'm just at the stage of testing colours', I said, 'Which one do you prefer?'. I tried to be as nonchalant as I possibly could.

Stu looked at my collage of goo. I could see he was having trouble recognising any colour at all.

'Do you like the 'fresh green/soft lavender' or the 'warm rustic pink'?', I helped him.

'The lavender', he replied, 'I think...but then, I'm colour-blind...?'.

Life is good. I have a supportive man who is colour blind. It doesn't get any better than that for a woman who imagines that her artistic ability is akin to those of the Renaissance artists.

(TO BE CONTINUED...my confidence is currently at an alltime low and I can only summon enough energy to LOOK at the wall...)