Adrienne French had a fulfilling and challenging job as a nurse working with people with life-limiting conditions - but was always passionate about painting.

It had been a childhood hobby, but after her children had grown up, she decided to pursue this passion and enrolled in an art degree York Ripon St John.

"I was a nurse at St Leonard's Hospice and did art as a hobby, going to evening classes when the girls were little, " says Adrienne, who lives in Heworth, York.

During her art and design course she continued to work at the hospice at weekends.

On graduating, she landed a part-time role as an artist at the hospice, working with inpatients on a variety of projects.

"We did ceramics, jewellery making," begins Adrienne. "The patients had different needs and sometimes the art become therapy, although I am not a therapist. But doing art is therapy in that it allows people to talk about things."

Since giving up her hospice post last October, the focus has been on building her painting career. All at the age of 60.

Besides taking part in the York Open Studios, where artists welcome the public into their homes and sell their work by themselves, Adrienne is busy with exhibitions and commissions.

She also takes part in a yearly selling show with other York makers. This autumn, she has been busy producing paintings for her latest show at the Helmsley Art Centre, which runs until January 3. Next year, her work will hang in York Hospital too.

When you look at her canvasses, its easy to see their appeal. Her big love is for landscape, and despite painting much of Britain, she can't resist the lure of Yorkshire.

York Press:

From left: Penygent, a view of the dales and a scene from the Wolds

The Wolds, and particularly Millington Pastures, are among her favourite places to visit. She enjoys walking there with her husband Jonathon.

Like David Hockney, she sees the magic in the Wolds where others simply see the murk.

Her palette is laden with vibrant shades depicting deep forest tones, crisp apple greens, sunshine yellows, ruby and claret, as well as softer pastels straight from the sweet shop.

She traces her affinity to the Wolds to her childhood in Hull. It was a place they visited often enough, and later, when she and Jonathon had their three daughters, Hannah, Alice and Madeleine, a trip to Millington was a favourite family adventure.

The dales and moors also dominate Adrienne's work. Her paintings, which are mostly mixed media in acrylics and oils, may be described as bordering on abstraction, but there is rarely any doubt about the actual subject.

Her confident use of colour is her way of communicating her impression of a place. "I'm trying to capture the joy it had for me," she says, describing a beautiful painting hanging in the lounge of her Victorian home. The large square shows a mountain in Scotland. Its top is lost in white cloud, as pure as cotton wool; a band of silver suggests the loch and in the foreground, wild grasses and flowers dance as if butterflies in chase. You can imagine the sort of day it might have been - a white grey day in the Highlands, casting everything in a cold, steely frown. And yet, Adrienne finds an alternative beauty - the softness of the snow-like cloud seems to melt into the hillside, which in turn glows warm through her application of sand and caramel shades as well as mauves and fern greens. There are lilacs in there too.

Impressively, none of her work relies on photographs. Instead, she uses memory, notes or sketches (often done on her iPad) as an aide memoire.

"Sometimes I'll write the colour or shape of something or the way the direction of the light is shining. I will take a photo, but I don't work from that. A photo doesn't capture the atmosphere. Also, for me, it is the minutiae I'm drawn to: it might be the line of a telephone wire across the landscape."

Each year, Adrienne picks a British county to visit, for holiday and research purposes, and yet, it's hard for her to resist home.

"I always come back to the moors and Wolds. They are so full of surprises at different times of the day and year as well as in different weather."

As for the Wolds, she loves their shapes and sense of seclusion. "There are hidden valleys; you can spend a whole day there and not see anybody."

Looking ahead to 2016, she suspects she will still be painting landscapes, but is keen to do some life drawing too.

York Press:

Two of Adrienne's images inspired by the Tour de France in Yorkshire

Paintings from the Tour de France in Yorkshire were a success, both artistically and commercially.

They show the cyclists almost in a blur, catching the speed and colour of the peloton. "I was trying to capture the movement, again from memory. What struck me was the angle of some of their bikes. I love bodies and it's something I'd like to get back to again."

Find out more about Adrienne's work at:

adriennefrench.co.uk

See her paintings at: Helmsley Art Centre, Helmsley, until January 3, 2016.

​York Open Studios, April 15 (preview 6-9pm),16,17, 23 and 24, for more information visit: yorkopenstudios.co.uk

York Hospital, May-July ​2016