Finding Rescue

ENGLAND 1915 — War War I is unfolding, and Winston Churchill, 40 years old, a member of the Cabinet, and the War Council, finds himself with “great anxiety and no means of relieving it.”

No relief until one Sunday when he experiments with a children’s paint-box. The next day buying his own "colours, an easel, and a canvas."

It was then, he says, "painting came to my rescue in a most trying time.”  It would be the beginning of a pastime that would last more than 40 years.

Images from
Painting as a Pastime,
by Winston S. Churchill.
Paintings by Churchill.

I discovered Churchill’s invitation to the joy of painting this afternoon at Yes Books on Congress Street, in Portland, Maine . . . worth a stop if you’re in the area. Going into Yes Books was a Julia Cameron-inspired artist date, always an invitation to explore.

Painting as a Pastime
An instructive and inspiring invitation to the joy of painting
Winston S. Churchill
(The Right Honourable Sir Winston Churchill, K.G., O.M., C.H., M.P.)
Cornerstone Library, New York
Reprinted 1966

This post could lead to more interesting topics:
- who was Winston Churchill?
- painting as a pastime
- an artist date defined