Yvonne Forster, my Mum, sketched, painted and drew for most of her life. Some scribbled drawings accompanied her diaries – abstract ideas or objects or decorated letters. This was from a notebook with various rough sketches or watercolors – Mum always preferred communicating with pictures. Some painting was for income – she didn’t do many commissioned portraits, but her graphic design work sometimes included freelance projects (a children’s illustrated guide to crochet stitches is one I still have). I would get watercolor birthday cards until shaking hands and poor eyesight made it too hard (she could still do it but wasn’t happy with the quality). One subject stood out from all others – trees.

This tree scene was painted onto wood and varnished – I think the wood blanks were intended for placemats, but small scratches in this one suggest it wasn’t robust enough for that, or heat proof. It may have been a scene in Peckham Park, or possibly somewhere near her prior home in Larkfield, Kent. Wherever she traveled, she’d sketch or sit and look at trees whenever possible. My letters and later email with her was littered with tree references. In reply to the news that Peter Goss had died she said she was sad, ending “So I’ll talk to the trees and take a deep breath…“. When she was having a bad day, she was frustrated the lifts in her building were out “...so I couldn’t run to the trees.“. When there were warden problems at her assisted living place she wrote “Painting trees keeps my sanity, as ever. Peckham Rye is lovely again“. Sometimes she didn’t paint trees, but took her frustrations out on them “I have been throwing sticks at trees since you were taken away and I was put back in Richmond theatre…“. After feeling ill she wrote: “I think I have been very unwell… but I went out … into Peckham Park yesterday and touched all my favourite trees of 5 years ago and it was like coming to life again – a bit heady.” She did, however, take a break from abstracts and trees to paint portraits of her parents which I am very happy to have custody of now.

Mum often took reference photos for the work she was planning to do, especially a complex painting, and when she decided to paint portraits of her retired parents, she photographed them doing things they normally did, dressed informally for the job they were doing. I have no idea how she talked her mother into this, but possibly didn’t tell her what the photo would be used for. Gamma was a good cook, and with the experience of two world wars and a modest retirement income, she was always making tasty things from inexpensive ingredients – cheap cuts of meat, carefully removing only the smallest part of an onion root and skin, etc. This picture was taken in the kitchen of their home in Worthing and she has an overall on (so she doesn’t dirty the good clothes). You can see the arthritis in her fingers, but she was able to chop, peel and clean until very late in life. Wearing a scarf indoors was something she used to do, not a special accessory just for the shot – I think so her hair wouldn’t get messy, but possibly it hid an untidy bun that should have been redone. Today, we’d call this an environmental portrait. I think it’s lovely as it really captures the moment as well as who she was.

This is Mum’s painting of her – subtly different (and I think a bit more flattering) but with the same down-to-earth vibe.

Mum did a similar thing with Gampalen – she photographed him working in the front garden at Hailsham Road, Worthing. They retired there to be “beside the sea”, a general sentiment I understand, though Worthing itself isn’t my favorite . He’d hum music to himself while he worked – he played violin in an amateur orchestra most of his adult life and lived with a non-stop sound track. Always orchestral – I don’t recall ever hearing lyrics. The slightly rumpled look was again, very much him (at least in retirement). He was an informal person – all soft and cuddly in contrast to Gamma’s tart and prickly exterior. Mum’s portrait of him is again, slightly flattering – it has less of a dazed and confused expression – but very much captures her Dad at work in the garden.

The watercolor at the head of this post is from a sketchbook, not quite finished, I think done when she worked in the graphics department of Reed Medway Sacks in Larkfield. She might have taken a short drive on a lunch break to sit and look at the River Medway and the plant. There are no captions and the businesses there have changed now, so it’s only a guess. I love the blend of industry and ducks on a timeless river. There is a story in all her visual work and it’s lovely that she left us her view of her parents, told in the medium she liked best. I’ll leave you with another portrait by Yvonne – one she did of me as a baby.