At Auntie Edie's house

Acrylic on hardboard 8" x 8" Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing this painting

I had an interesting time yesterday. I went through all my unsold small paintings and created three piles: keepers; rejects for recycling; salvage pile. The salvage pile is those painting that I think can be rescued and I was eager for the opportunity anyway to re-work some stuff and see how I got on. I like that idea, because if it was important enough for you to paint in the first place, you have to learn what it was that attracted you and build on that, not just throw it out. For this painting, which was quite a recent painting, and you may remember it had a huge vase of sunflowers on the table, I really was remembering visits to my Auntie Edie who was not my real aunt but was my grandma's friend. She was a Victorian spinster lady but very kind. She lived in a fairly poor terraced house near us and she still had gas light even up to her death. I wanted to portray how it felt as a small child in that house. A green chenille table cloth, gloomy walls and interior, one or two inherited ornately framed landscapes and the gas light on the wall. I was not afraid but I did feel small. If I was good she let me read one her small stock of Victorian children's stories, very morally driven they were too but I was at the age when even reading the cornflake packet was riveting! Sorry this painting does not photograph so well because of the darkness in it.