Last week I posted a short video in which I provided a new, rigid heptagonal with linen. I was almost inappropriately pleased with the result: firm, flat, smooth, soft and with white gesso. I’m going to use it for a special portrait of George Orwell.
The white gave me the idea to make the background similar to that on my first ‘painting-as-tribute ‘ of my grandmother. I made it when I had just started painting; in 2019. She died when her oldest daughter, my mother, was only 6 years old. The memory of her was erased. I based the painting on the only photograph that had been secretly preserved of her.