Not Quite The Book

My painting for 1984 was called ‘Christmas Carol’. In spite of its theme I painted it over the summer holidays while we were staying for a month in a holiday house. As we had two young children by then and couldn’t go out in the evening .

I’d previously ordered the holly wreath from our local flower shop and made a watercolour study of it.

In the holly wreath are hidden faces of some of my ancestors (ghosts of Christmas past). In the centre of the picture are shadowy figures of my young family (ghosts of Christmas Present) and on the card is a picture of me in extreme old age (Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come)

The colour of the background was originally painted to match the shade of the wall in our old house (it hung on a door we didn’t use) but now it’s mounter in a gold frame.

You can see the painting on my latest Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky posts.