Fun facts about Annette G. White

All About Me

a. My middle name is a secret.
b. I don’t eat seafood
c. I am coming to terms with snails
d. Naaa.. I’m alright to watch snails from afar and make them look pretty in paintings, but they really can stay in other people’s gardens, please!

As a child, I was always drawing and painting. Any scrap of paper that I could find, I would use, then turn it over and use the other side.
My big dream was to become a Commercial Artist! 
I loved saying that to whoever asked me, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up, Netty?’
‘A Commercial Artist!’
Ha, I never did!

I just recently found these fashion paintings below!
I had almost forgotten that these were part of the winning drawings that went to Rag Magazine; a competition through the Sunday Telegraph.  I was on my way, I thought, but I was only 16  and ‘much too young’ both my parents said. I was very disappointed, but they were different times back in the 60’s.
So that path ended before it really started.

But I still had my dreams .. maybe a fashion designer, I thought.
Once again I entered into a competition in the newspaper and I won an incredible prize! A Fashion Design Course with De LaSalle in Sydney! I can still remember walking into the design and cutting room; my heart just bouncing with excitement! But my dreams were shattered because once again my parents decided I was still too young.
Back to dreaming again. I actually was called ‘Netty the Dreamer’ at school.
PJ Proby was in my dreams too. That’s why the painting I did when I was 16 (?) I still have tucked away safely, but no one knows who he is anyway! I have to laugh as his music is quite corny when I listen to it now, but boy, it takes me back in time! Those feelings … As well as The Beatles, Elvis, Dave Clark Five, Bob Dylan, etc, etc … just so many posters plastered on my bedroom walls!

And so my very simple and condensed story is that I became a florist for ten years or so, married and had two astounding boys that are still my best buddies! (They may not know it, but they really are!)
I also had a fashion boutique for a few years, and had my name ‘up in lights’! Well, not really, just on a sign board swinging above the store. My ‘fashion designer’ dream was kind of fulfilled!
Then I ended up, after a few years being in Administration and a Sales Representative for an incredible Bathroom Import company who sent me all around Australia as well as Europe. 
Ahh.. those were the days when we could travel across Australia as well as overseas! New Zealand, Barcelona, Germany, Greece, Budapest, Netherlands and of course Austria where my parents came from.
So when I was asked to join another company to design Bathrooms, I was a bit hesitant at first but ended up loving it and found it extremely rewarding for several years and made quite close friends there as well ….. until the warmth of Bali enticed us over to stay for a couple of years or so.

And retirement! And Grandchildren!
And Children’s Books!

I am eternally grateful for my grandchildren because without them these books would never have been illustrated, written or even read!