A local artist with limited sight in one eye thought she might never paint again after she temporarily lost the sight in the other eye.

Lisa Joli woke up one morning to find she couldn't see out of her left eye and rushed to hospital.

She discovered the same thing had happened to her left eye – the retina had become detached - but three operations later, she can now see again out of her left eye.

Lisa lost some of the sight in her right eye due when she was 48 years old due to a detached retina.

And Lisa, who lives in Crewe Road, Haslington, is so grateful that she has some sight back that she is busily painting as much as possible while she can see.

"My sight is different in my left eye but I can see. It was a very scary time. I couldn't do anything for around 10 weeks," she said.

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"I couldn't read, couldn't paint or watch TV. My first paintings after I got some vision back were blurry florals.

"There's a sense of urgency to paint now as much as possible. The worst thing ever when it happened was not being able to see people's faces. It was a huge shock.

The 55-year-old used to just paint sea scapes but since getting her sight back she has moved into pet portraits, landscapes and life drawing.

"I'm doing commissions and I might even teach myself to play the piano. I want to do as much as possible."

Lisa now does about 10 paintings a week from landscapes she has seen to pet drawings and also hopes to illustrate a friend's book.

"I'm much more confident now to do more impressionist work. I used to do precise abstracts but now I'm trying out different techniques."

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Lisa, who used to specialise in sea scapes as we revealed here, has a studio in her garden and plans to run summer classes for budding artists to share her creative skills.

She said: "I woke up feeling like I'd got peppery dots in my eye. It's so important to get it diagnosed and treated quickly as there's a better chance of it being fixed.

"I'd have felt really cheated if my sight had been taken away from me. I feel very, very lucky to have it back."

More details about Lisa's work can be found on her website here , Facebook page here and Instagram here

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