I sketched with my hands because I had them. That's what hands were made for: grabbing crayons and creating markings freely and joyfully.

As most youngsters do, I wrote on the walls at home and on the sidewalks outdoors.

We learnt to write using slates and chalks, as well as wet sponges, in elementary school. Writing looked like another kind of painting, with loops and arcs scrawled over the page.

Individual letters were formed into repeating lines. It was a world of abstract shapes and lovely but meaningless patterns.

I had a hard time learning to read words made up of clumps of letters, but I could draw them.

I drew figures as well. Women are always fully clothed and dressed in romantic clothes.

Because I couldn't draw legs or feet, I covered them with long skirts. Because I was unable to design hands, the figurines' arms ended in points.

When my father's work colleague, an amateur painter, saw my paintings, he advised me to study nude people and learn to sketch body forms properly. I was caught aback as a good little repressed Catholic.

Our art instructor taught us how to paint. He yelled at us as he handed us poster paints, telling us not to be clean and tidy and instead to splash paint about, mixing colors, even if we ended up with mud puddles.

I hung my paintings on the dining room drapes and went to art galleries while I was at home.

For initial versions of works in secondary school, we utilized rough books. Mine had a lot of doodles in the margins.

I painted with poster paint again in art class, and I also created lino cuts. Art was my favorite topic, and I believed I was excellent at it since I like it so much.

We had to submit a painting, a timed portrait in pencil, and a timed still life for the art O-level test. I struggled with the final two, but hoped to pass.

I received a failing grade. I was taken aback.

I'd exaggerated my confidence. Now I'd been labeled as untalented. I felt humiliated and foolish.

He's a moron. I didn't tell anybody how I felt. Years earlier, I'd seen other students fail their 11-plus exams and be made to feel like fools for the rest of their lives.

I was aware of their shame and distress. My problems seemed little in contrast, because I'd at least passed the dreadful 11-plus.

It would be self-indulgent to bemoan this setback. I, too, was kept silent by pride.

Other creative outlets remained open: I continued to write poetry and short tales. Following graduation, I began a perilous life of freelance writing, supporting myself via part-time employment and living in shared housing.

I went to a lot of exhibits. I kept sketching obsessively, which I now refer to as juvenile doodling. I had no intention of enrolling in an evening painting class.

I didn't let myself go there. I'd gladly gotten engaged with women's liberation, and we emphasized collectivity and cooperation.

It was acceptable to dress up and perform in vibrant, colorful street theatrical acts inspired by Dadaism and Situationism. Painting alone seemed to be less appealing.

Despite the fact that I had left Catholicism due to its sexism, its puritanism remained inside me, clashing with my desire for freedom and pleasure.

In my 30s, I met painter friends and learnt new and intriguing ways of looking at art from them and the painter I married. But I couldn't bear the thought of really executing it.

Painting professionals were the genuine deal. I wasn't one of them. Despite the fact that these new pals were acrylic abstract painters, printmakers, or sculptors creating installations, I continued to fetishize oil painting as the taboo high art I was prohibited to do.

In my early 40s, I had a dream that a large red-clad lady came me, gave me a bag of paints, and ordered me to begin painting. It shook me because the dream seemed so strong and numinous, so authoritative.

It represented a positive, tolerant outlook. It was a kind of energy that restored what I'd lost.

As a result, the following day I went out and purchased some supplies. I began by playing around with pastels, chalks, pen and ink, and watercolours.

Finally, when I began writing a book about Matisse's two female helpers who assisted him in creating his renowned cut-outs, I purchased some oil paints. More colors, canvases, a few lessons, encouragement, and support were given to me by two painter pals.

Let's get this party started. That was my mother's counsel when she became frustrated with my dithering and attempting to explain everything, which annoyed me.

Now I realized how wise it was.

Although I have loved overcoming my decades-long aversion to working with oil paintings, I have found that pastels and ink are now my preferred mediums. I make cartoons off of my line drawings and email them to my pals.

Everything seems to be simple and uncomplicated. Un-anxious. This time, I'm able to accept my limits while still pushing forward.

Being forceful is a need for creativity. I realized I'd always been scared of desiring too much, of being too large, of taking up too much room.

The large lady in red in my dream reminded me that my anxieties and aspirations might motivate me to take chances and try new things.

Thanks to Michèle Roberts at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.