Fiona Murphy, painter.
I paint for leisure and pure pleasure. I painted a cow last year and the vet was in having a cup of tea and I said to him, 'What do you think of our latest investment?' He said, 'Jaysus that's the saddest looking cow I ever saw.' Then I told him I painted it myself. I like to buy paintings. We usually invest in a painting a year, costing anything from €60 to €600, and I always buy what I like because I have to live with it. Of course you're always hoping you have made a good investment, too.
I went down to Wishy Martin in Lismore Arts Centre to do her painting class. I always wanted to paint. Her thing is that she trains you to look at things differently. When we look at a horse, we see the horse. But she makes you look at the negative spaces, like the light at the back, or the shape under the horse's legs. You learn to see the spaces around things because they're the spaces that make a painting.
When I go to classes I just lose myself for that two and a half hours, although sometimes I get so frustrated by what I'm doing if it's not working. I love painting with oils because if something isn't working you can just paint the canvas white and start again.
Years ago I did a pottery course with Marcus O'Mahony. We learned to roll the clay and then mould it together to make bowls. I worked on the wheel and I loved it. Pottery is not like painting. It's almost instant. You can create a little bowl in about three minutes.
But it's also very satisfying when your painting comes home framed. I've had two of our sons' paintings framed. One is a picture of a toy tractor driven by a man with no arms and the steering wheel up in the sky. The other is extremely abstract. I try to have at least one painting session a week with Charlie who's seven and Jack who's six.
They're very conservative about mixing colours. If I mixed a yellow and a red they'd say it was too dirty. Now they insist they must colour inside the lines. It's amazing how they tame them. I keep telling them, 'No, colour the whole page.'
See: www.marcusomahony.com. Portrait painter Wishy Martin can be contacted on 058-54630
• In conversation with Catherine Cleary