TWO artists who met while studying in their 60s are preparing to exhibit their work in Kidderminster.

Margaret Pritchard, 69, and Ruth Cherry, 70, are displaying a collection of mixed media paintings and photographs, entitled Encounters on the Shore, at Kidderminster Library Gallery, from Saturday.

Mrs Pritchard took up painting to save her from becoming "just a housewife" when she retired from her job as a personal assistant, while Mrs Cherry decided she wanted to go to college.

Mrs Pritchard told the Shuttle/Times & News: "It's unusual in that it's two senior ladies doing the exhibition. We actually did a degree in our 60s and have been putting on exhibitions together, but not as part of a group or art club."

The Hagley resident met Mrs Cherry, who lives in Belbroughton and is a member of Kidderminster Choral Society, while studying art and design at Stourbridge College.

They had enrolled on a new part-time course, called BH Hons by negotiate study, and were studying alongside other mature students as young as 21.

Grandmother-of-two, Mrs Cherry, finished with a diploma in 2001, while Mrs Pritchard completed nine years of study and graduated with a BA Hons degree in 2003.

"I finished work in my late 50s and didn't want to become just a housewife and I thought I'd always had a leaning towards art and decided to do it," Mrs Pritchard went on.

"I didn't want to just join an art club but to go into it from an intellectual level as well as a technical one, while Ruth was a member of the Village Artists, based in Belbrougton and Clent, and did this course because she thought she would go to college."

She said she and her friend, who have previously exhibited in The Glass Centre and The Living Gallery in Stourbridge, as well as with the Wyre Forest Arts Forum in Germany, were "artists rather than pensioners".

"The one thing about art is there is no kind of age gap or anything," she concluded.

"I mix with youngsters in the art world and the fact I'm a pensioner never comes into it."

The exhibition, which will also include photographs by John Bird, runs until Saturday, March 5.

More information can be obtained by calling 01562 824500.