Who is this Lucy Parker anyway?

My mother (Anne Parker) was an artist and took a dim view of art colleges, so she pushed me into doing science even though I had shown some artistic talent at an early age. I ended up at Sussex University studying Biology. I met my husband there, who was a brainy mathematician and therefore could get a "proper job". But you can't keep a good artist down, so after getting a Bsc in Biology I went to art college and ended up studying for a BA in Illustration. I had to pay my own fees so when an opportunity came up to be the illustrator for the software games company, Salamander Software, I took it and learnt on the job (as it were). As the company was run from my dining room I also helped run the company. I did the art direction and print buying as well as the fantastic covers.

At Art College I developed my passion for life drawing. I think of it as my artistic aerobics and have always done it on a regular basis. After a short break to have children I began to paint for myself and started to exhibit my work. I began to teach painting and drawing as well at this time and still do.

I discovered handmade Khadi watercolour paper and a new way of using watercolour at a workshop with the painter Graham Dean (who funnily enough bought my old house a few years before.) This changed my life. It seemed natural to use my life drawings in my work once I moved away from my tight illustrative style. I use a very limited palette of colours, which seem sympathetic to the human form.

Portraits, landscapes and architecture are also inspiring to me and my paintings tend to reflect where I have been recently. Obviously, I have done Brighton a lot, but I am very lucky to go to Cape Cod every year to stay with the in-laws. The Cape is more or less a source of constant inspiration to me. We live in a shed in the woods by the sea and the quality of light there is fantastic, and I try to capture it in my paintings. Some of my paintings reflect Edward Hooper and it is not because I am trying to do that - it really does look like that.

Venice is also a recurring theme. It is hard for an artist to visit Venice and not want to paint it. The light, the colours, the architecture and the atmosphere are hard to resist. As every artist and their dog paints Venice, I am trying the sense of atmosphere and history in my new paintings.

I recently had brief visits to Barcelona and Seville. I was blown away by the Gaudi architecture in Barcelona and want to go back and do more sketching. Seville was inspiring too. I adored the Alcazar and would happily spend a week just in the garden there just drawing and painting.

I am a member of the Fiveways Artists Group in Brighton who open their houses during the Brighton Festival in May every year for art exhibitions. It was the Fiveways group that started the open house phenomenon, which has now spread throughout the town and country. We have a couple of thousand visitors every year. It is a great way to exhibit as you are in sole charge of your exhibition and you get to talk to the visitors directly and get their reactions to your work. This is my main exhibition every year.

I did have an exhibition in 2002 at the Hawth Theatre in Crawley where my nudes caused a sensation, so much so that some were taken down as they were deemed to cause offence. I was rather taken a back by this as no one had batted an eyelid in Brighton. However this was a great excuse for some free publicity.

I am currently working on a series of nudes incorporating natural forms, a series of interiors. And now we have a dog, which involves long walks across the Downs, I shall be doing views of Sussex.

I have also taken up oil painting again and love it. I am doing portraits and long life studies. I have discovered that if you paint from life long enough using flake white oil paint, you too can paint like Lucien Freud.

I am teaching life drawing and painting at the Connaught Centre in Hove and I also tutor the Dupont Group regularly and run a basic drawing and Painting for Pleasure at the Whiteway Centre in Rottingdean. I am still very involved with the Sussex County Arts Club which does drop in life drawing, where I go for my artistic aerobics.

I regularly undertake commissions. I used to get a lot to do peoples houses and pets, now it seems to be nude portraits.