Introduction...

Hello and welcome to this, my first ever blog!

Let me introduce myself properly: My name is Martin and I live in Yorkshire. By profession I am a train driver but I am also an artist and I use my time off duty to paint. I have been driving trains for about 4 years now, but I've been drawing and painting for 40+ years!

I started out my working life as an engineer and spent 5 years as an apprentice, followed by another 5 years on the shop floor. This was long enough for me to realise that life in a factory was not for me! I then did a graphic design degree at Leeds which changed my life and made me look at things very differently. Unfortunately I graduated straight into the UK's last recession and struggled to find work or employment. A variety of projects and jobs took me on a route through PR, event management and marketing, before illness made me take another look at where I was going. Train driving came along purely by chance. It is a great job: I swipe on-duty and do my job, I swipe off-duty and forget about it. I get time off in the week when everyone else is working and this is when I can focus on my art.

So that is my life in a nutshell!