A REPAIRMAN who could not draw the simplest shapes woke from a stroke with a talent for painting.

Wayne Sheppard now spends ten hours a day creating quirky works of art.

Wayne, 47, left, said: “I remember waking up in hospital the next morning with this sudden urge to draw.

“I didn’t really know what I was doing but I felt possessed.

"For the first three days out of hospital I just started sketching non-stop.

"I couldn’t draw before, even a circle or a square.

"Now people are paying me for my work.”

Wayne, who creates a new painting every couple of days, sells them at markets around London for up to £400 a time.

His favourites include his version of the Mona Lisa, portraits of David Bowie and Bob Marley and the London skyline.

He says: “Most of the time I don’t know what I’m going to paint.

"As soon as I put my brush to paper or canvas the pictures just come alive.”

Wayne collapsed during his shift as a repairman at Whipps Cross University Hospital, East London, in December 2016.

An MRI scan revealed he had had a stroke that cut off the blood to the right of his brain, causing tissue death in an area associated with creativity.

Further tests showed he had cancer in his lungs, spleen and liver and he was later diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and given a year to live.

Wayne, from Plumstead, South East London, said: “I have this terminal cancer but painting has given me a purpose.”

Medical expert Dr David Alexander Dickie, of Glasgow University, said: “As paradoxical as it may seem, damage to certain areas of the brain may allow creative processes to flourish.”