AN artist discovered a blast from the past while clearing out her store room showing Clacton's pier at its best.

Lisa Rippon, 54, who works from her home studio in Tendring village, uncovered the postcard of Clacton scenes which she painted in May 1983.

At the time she was a student at the Wimbledon School of Art, studying a BA in Fine Art Painting, after completing a two-year foundation course at Colchester Art College.

Mrs Rippon had not seen it for many years and described it as an "experimental piece" done in five different media.

She said: "It's the kind you do more when you're a fearless student.

"I've always been interested in the sea and the shoreline having lived in Clacton from age two, and a lot of my early work was influenced by it - either paintings, collages of found items from the beach or sand boxes.

"The sunken gardens in the centre is in gouache, bottom left is watercolour, bottom right is a screen print, top left is oil paint on paper and the top right is oil pastel on paper.

"A larger version of the bottom right panel hangs in Clacton Hospital which was painted before I was married, in the name of Spurr."

Examples of Mrs Rippon's commissions can be seen across Essex.

A 14-ft long depiction of hospital life in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry is on disaplay at Colchester General Hospital with a similar sized piece of a jungle scene in Harlow's Princess Alexandra Hospital.

These days, Mrs Rippon, mostly paints koi carp but also has a darker series called Nursery Rhymes Stripped Bare where she depicts nursery rhymes and children's literature in a dark, gothic style.

For more of her work, visit lisaripponfineart.co.uk.