Looking back a few years, it feels unfathomable that being an artist might become part of my identity. I have always yearned to study again, to do a degree just for the joy of learning subjects that fascinate me. Ideas of possible subjects were bountiful; not once do I recall pondering art school. I was firmly not an artist.
If I cast myself back to my teenage years, there was a brief period where I dreamt of becoming an artist but it wasn’t long before I stopped painting and drawing. I recall immense frustration at the mismatch between my ambitions and reality. This was particularly the case when it came to drawing and painting people.
I rarely thought about painting and art for the next 20-25 years. Possibly a dabble here and there and a pull towards crafting, sewing, knitting, crochet but none of them ever very sustained or successful. I wanted to want to do them but most of the time, I was easily distracted. My identity was not linked to art; I would much rather have visited a science museum than an art gallery. I presume life would have continued this way, had Neve not developed cancer.
The turning point in my connection with art came in the spring of 2022, nearly two years into Neve’s illness. Life was challenging and at times, unbearable. Neve was suffering, enduring anguish and almost unspeakable levels of pain and distress. Her first near death experience had been a year earlier. Since that significant day midway through 2021, she continued to deteriorate and then to rally, often dramatically. This pattern occurred frequently but in an irregular manner; the foundations of my life were precarious and unpredictable. I was on edge and anxious, overwhelmed by Neve’s complex care needs. The oscillations between the mundaneness of life and the ever present fear that my child could die at any moment left a constant feeling of foreboding and unease.
Strengthened by the support and wisdom of those around me, I was eventually able to recognise my heightened state of vigilance. My brain and nervous system ached for calm and serenity. Running helped but I didn’t actually enjoy it. Knitting seemed perfect, except for the fact that I could never motivate myself to do it.
Thus, when I saw an advert for a three part botanical watercolour painting workshop, I was captivated. Painting flowers in 400 year old botanic gardens. All supplies provided. A short cycle ride away. Nurses from a local respite charity could look after Neve. Friends encouraged me; this was a moment for spontaneity and decisiveness, even if it felt extravagant. Booked.
Painting that first flower, in my first workshop, in the citrus Conservatory, was a seminal moment. For the first time in years, I felt my brain ease and lighten. Focused on the details, the colours, the shadows, the textures, I had a break from brooding about my suffering and dying child. The teacher was kind and encouraging; I left that session with calm and quiet courage. Her confidence in me was inspiring. A fire was lit.
What next?, I wondered. Time to purchase my own paints? However, I knew myself. I knew I would not actually sustain this painting, at least not without a class or an external form of accountability. I was adamant that I would not buy paints, only for them to languish. Yet, sadly, finding a course that coincided with available and reliable childcare for a child with complex needs was virtually impossible.
Months passed, with me feeling drawn to painting flowers but unsure of the logistics. Then one day, in the autumn of 2022, a parcel arrived in the post. Paints, for me! My aunt had none of my qualms about possible neglect of the art supplies. Without further ado, I become devoted to watercolour painting. Before long, I had in my possession a book, which became a perfect gateway into watercolour painting. Detailed instructions about this medium and then step by step guides for painting flowers.
From November 2022 onwards, I painted daily. Mostly flowers, methodically working my way through this book and then others (see list of suggested resources at the end of this piece). The joys of painting were surprisingly multi-faceted. I enjoyed the process, the learning, the contentment and relaxation for my brain. In addition, producing (subjectively) beautiful artwork took my breath away. My brain was finding such calm and quiet in colour and shapes and artwork.
Who knew, four decades into life, that I could devote myself and develop hitherto unknown competencies.
Credit goes to the books that I read. The key was working through them methodically, particularly the introductions and how-to sections. I quickly understood that I needed to paint what I saw, not what I thought I saw. In order for me to see, to really see, it was necessary to look and to focus. Everything else fell away when I painted.
My joy didn’t stop here. In time, Neve and I developed a routine. Each finished painting was presented to Neve. She was continually delighted with each new piece of artwork, each new flower. Her warmth and compassion, her support and delight became an integral part of the process. Each painting was then dutifully stuck on the wall of her room, usually by a carer, always under Neve’s precise instruction. Intervention was sometimes needed, to remind Neve that carers could not just stack chairs and climb ladders to reach her desired locations. Neve had much less time for health and safety than the NHS and Social Care would have desired.
Her room as an art gallery enabled the flowers and paintings to become points of conversation with anybody who came into Neve’s space. Her walls were a riot of colour and artwork, mostly mine but also some of hers. Minimalist it was not but warm, comforting, and engaging it was.
I continued along this path, experimenting with looser flowers and detailed botanical illustrations and everything in between. Along the way, I attempted some animals and insects but flowers were the foundation of my painting. In time, Neve grew more and more unwell and paintings were often put up while she slept. Though they were of course shifted by her loyal and devoted carers if she awoke and didn’t approve of their location.
Neve was not especially drawn to artwork as a small child; she was much more likely to be running around outside. She rarely brought home the glorious stacks of paintings and awkwardly large junk modelling structures that I had grown used to her sisters bringing home.
However, in her final years, art with carers, nurses, and teachers became a joy. I imagine it was just as much the connection as the activity itself. Particularly enjoyed was the art room at our local hospice and visits with her hospital school teacher. In time it became obvious that she was losing these skills, this ability, her strength. As these skills and her health fell away, her room became more and more colourful, lived in, and warm-hearted.
And then, in the spring of 2023, Neve died.
There was a brief pause, however, I didn’t stop painting for long. I did, however, wonder who I was now painting for.
Suddenly, I was questioning my purpose. Why was I painting? I continued to be drawn to watercolours, but the paintings ended up tucked away, unseen, not engaged with.
Whilst I had lost my sense of purpose, my delight in Neve’s delight, I had not lost the confidence that had come with learning to paint. Learning a skill like this, at age 40, was astonishing. If this was possible, what else could I learn? A world of possibilities opened up, a previously unpossessed confidence in myself.
Soon after Neve died, I unexpectedly knew that I needed to paint her. Nevermind that I couldn’t paint people, that I had in fact stopped painting decades earlier because people were so complex. Nevermind the fact that flowers were successful precisely because they were so much more forgiving than people.
All I wanted to do was draw and paint Neve.
I recalled hearing that we can learn anything if we spend 10,000 hours on it. I promptly resolved to do exactly this. It seemed wise to start with portraits and work up to full bodies later. And so I began to work my way methodically through a book, aptly named, You will be able to draw faces by the end of this book. Much to my surprise, the title turned out to be relatively accurate.
I have now been painting portraits, mostly of Neve, for about eight months. I initially assumed I would paint her in colour, in accurate skin tones. This turned out to be more complicated than I had anticipated. Instead, I seem to have taken a different path, for now at least. A suggestion in a book about painting in monochrome as a way to understand tone and shadows has turned out to be not the stepping stone I had imagined but instead a joy in its own right.
Neve changed so much in her final years, both in looks and in personality. After she died, it was hard to imagine how she could have been the little child that she was up until age eight. I would look at pictures of little Neve and ask her and ask myself, who are you?
How could these vastly different looking children be the same child?
How could I, as her mother, not recognise this?
Who was I grieving?
Which child had I lost?
My early months of painting Neve focused primarily on little Neve, between the ages of approximately four and six. I reconnected with this elfin child. I learnt the shape of her eyes, the placement of her moles, the angles of her ears. I traced her, again and again, in graphite and charcoal and in watercolours, familiarising myself with the details of her face. I painted her eyes and became captured within them, struck by their strength and depth. Her luxuriant eye lashes, impossibly long. The way the folds above her eyes traced a slightly different path to her eyes themselves. Could those eyes see what was coming?
As I got to know this little person again, I began to grieve for her. When Neve was diagnosed with brain cancer at age seven, time sped up and there was no space to grieve for the loss of a child who was still very much alive and needing vast amounts of care. Only now, after her death, came the season to ache and mourn for that impish and fiery child. There was a sense of grounding, of processing, that accompanied my paintings of little Neve.
Often I would look into her eyes and wonder whether the cancer was already growing at that moment in time. Was there a way I could have known what was to come, if I had started painting her earlier? Would I have spotted the initially minute asymmetries in her eyes, brought on by the cancer? Why had I not known the shapes of her eyes and the thickness of her eyelashes, before she died? Was my mothering not good enough, if I didn’t know her in detail, while she was alive?
In time, I have grown to understand that painting has allowed me to see the world with different eyes. I did not know the fine details of Neve’s face before she died because I could not see in this way. Learning to paint has altered how I process what I see; now I see the shadows, the angles, the asymmetries, the small details that make the likeness of a person. Rather than green, I see sap green and green gold. I adore ochres and umbers and siennas; the world has become more nuanced, more vivid.
Even if I had begun to paint her earlier and spotted those small asymmetries, she would not be alive today. In the case of an aggressive brain cancer like this, there is very rarely a way out, even with an early diagnosis. Her consultant gifted us this assurance.
It was not until six months after her death that I felt ready to paint the most recent Neve, the unwell Neve. Whilst this Neve looked different, I still recognised her eyes. They were the same eyes as the little Neve had. More proof for my brain, that the elfin Neve and the unwell Neve were in fact the same child.
This was also the moment where I learnt to paint her naso-gastric (NG) tube. For the most part, Neve’s NG tube brought immense relief and quality of life. This was something that she had begged for, in the hope of avoiding the need to swallow vast quantities of pills and other medications, multiple times a day and night. We all grew to appreciate this thin little tube, which allowed us to give her vital medications to keep her as comfortable as possible, without needing to wake her or make further demands on an already very unwell child. As such, there was an element of pride and of satisfaction in being able to gently trace and then paint the tube and the tape that secured it to her cheek. Both in use and in painting, careful attention was given to the depth of the NG tube and the upside down numbers on the tube itself.
The tape is another matter altogether. I rarely decorated the tape myself; mostly this was nurses and carers, or Neve and a sister. The decorations varied wildly, from professional looking pieces of art to, shall we say, more amateur level drawings. Excellent nursing skills were not always directly correlated with artistic skills. Neve was happy with all of them; she felt the love that was conveyed through the decorating of NG tube tape. In addition, her tape often fell off and would be secured in place by more tape. Whilst there were days when it was all neat and tidy, there were also many days where it was a hodge podge of tape, with the sole purpose of keeping it securely in place.
Now, each time I paint the NG tube and the tape, I ponder how to decorate it. I am new to this job; sometimes I do my best to preserve what I see in the picture, other times I design my own tape artwork. Often I loosely add shadows and structure and leave it otherwise blank, open to our imagination. I like to think this gives her carers and nurses and sisters an open frame to remember their own artwork.
Painting has given me a new language, a new way of processing the world. It has opened the door to my grief and smoothed my brain’s transition from little Neve to bigger Neve. I have begun what I assume will be a lifelong process, of connecting with both the little Neve and also the bigger Neve. One I remember with more clarity than the other but they both call out to be grieved. I plan to eventually move on to painting all of Neve’s figure, not just her face. The further I delve into watercolours, the more doors open for colours and techniques and ideas.
Getting the likeness of Neve is not easy; sometimes I trace, using tracing paper or an app on my phone, the placements of her main features. Other times I slowly and methodically measure everything, to ensure that it is Neve I am drawing. I aspire to be able to capture her likeness freehand and casually.
My painting now is a bittersweet activity. I am deeply pulled to and fond of it, both the process and the product, as well as its influence on my brain. Yet, without Neve’s brain cancer diagnosis and the resulting stresses and suffering, I would not have picked up a paintbrush nor learnt to paint flowers. And without her death, I would not be painting her life. On days when I am particularly pleased by a portrait I have done, when the likeness is there, when her eyes shine and I can stare deeply into them, I dearly wish I could share my paintings of her, with her. I imagine she would be stunned but also delighted and proud. Proud of me for the painting and proud that I am painting her, in all her guises.
Books I have found useful
Watercolour paints
For flowers and anything other than painting Neve, I use Cotman Watercolours, from Winsor & Newton
For painting Neve, I mostly use watercolours from The Stoneground Paint Company. I adore them, however, due to the price difference and the need to source them from abroad, I guard them carefully and use them only for Neve portraits.
Oh, Emily, what a beautiful story you have shared with us. It's raw, it's detailed and it helps me understand what has brought you to this moment of being an artist. I had often wondered why your teenage love of painting didn't carry through to adulthood. Your writing has
helped me understand that and so much more. xxx
This was a fascinating read Emily. These portraits of Neve are beautiful and we are seeing your skill with paints evolving as you create more of these lovely renditions of Neve. She would be thrilled I am quite certain. An artist with words as well as paints !