I WONDER how many local artists have taken up their new hobby thanks to watching two amazing telly painters - Bob Ross (oils) and Frank Clarke (water colours).

I had a bit of a talent for drawing and painting as a little 'un , but at Leigh Grammar School, when push came to shove, to choose 0-level subjects in the third form, I stupidly opted for sciences.

After failing chemistry miserably, I decided to do art in the sixth form in September and passed my O-level two months later. What an easy three years I missed. I should have taken up the paintbrush instead of opting to make the school's top corridor stink of rotten eggs - and that's putting it politely.

It's only a couple of years ago that I decided to give it a go again after picking up Bob Ross on satellite and I love it. I have a pile of recorded tapes of both the American and Irishman at work. They make it look oh so simple, but it ain't.

I started in oils following the Ross creations. He boasts a lazy man's way of painting, and completes a stunning work in 20 minutes with decorating-sized brushes, and there's not a speck of paint or oil anywhere but on the canvas.

When I do, it it's all over my hands, brushes, the table top, clothes and hoofer doofer.

Now Frank is a different matter. I still have to keep rewinding to catch up but watercolour is so much easier to clean up.

Thanks to these two, and piles of books borrowed from the library, I have developed a hobby that I enjoy.

If I can do it anyone can. By this time next year, we could all be millionaires. Some hopes.

In fact I'm considering entering a piece for the world's wackiest art award, the controversial $20,000 Turner prize.

Entries this year are as daft as ever - a blob of Blu Tack containing a thumb print is among other assemblies of rubbish.

I could tack my grotty, old creosote-splattered cardi on to a canvas and submit it for consideration. It wouldn't be much worse that some of the garbage that has passed muster, like Damien Hirst's disgusting sheep preserved in formaldehyde, and Tracey Emin's unmade bed.