Billy Connolly says his new career as an artist is partly inspired by how awful he was at drawing at school.
The musician and comedian is showing a collection of his drawings and one sculpture in a West End art gallery.
The works go for thousands of pounds but Connolly admits he was “terrible” at art when he was younger.
He said: “There was a guy sat on my left at school called Tony Fleming and he was beyond good.
“He could do spacecraft that were donut-shaped with the works in the middle and windows and aerials and things.
“He went to be a draftsman at a shipyard and I never saw him again and another guy called Tim McGlyn who could draw funny things and we used to do cartoons together and I did the funny words.
“I enjoy doing it and it’s my time. I wish Tony Fleming was here to see it, he’d like them and Tim would love them.”
Connolly, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2013, quit live performing in 2018 and said he intended to concentrate on his art now.
He has said art has now become a big part of his life and something that he does every day.
His latest show includes another work inspired by his roots working as a shipyard welder on Clydeside.
The 77-year-old said he was “blown sideways” when his gallery had someone make the stainless steel sculpture based on one of his drawings showing God welding the world together.
But Connolly, who has also branched out into making images for t-shirts and cards for his family, said he still had not got used to seeing his work on gallery walls.
He said: “It stops being purely personal, it’s like making an album of songs.
“You wrote songs that are purely personal then you put them on an album and they belong to everybody.
“It’s just one of those things you have to deal with that nobody warned you about.”
Connolly said he took a relaxed approach to his drawing and just “goes with the flow” rather than planning out his work.
He said: “I draw from the feet up. I don’t know what it’s going to be until I’m finished.
“It’s exciting, it’s a process like writing a song or a tune you don’t know what the next notes or chords are going to be until you do them and then they let you know that they fit.”
He has previously spoken about how he refuses to let Parkinson’s, a degenerative neurological condition which impacts speech and movement, “represent me”.
He told the Sunday Telegraph last year the disease is the “first thing I think about when I wake up".
“And then you can’t get out of bed. You have to get your wife to pull you out. But some mornings, I think about it the second - they’re good days.
“And you always manage to get out of bed yourself. And you draw better. And get about your life better.”
The exhibition runs at Castle Fine Arts in South Molton Street until March 12 and the work goes on sale online on March 13.
