Over Christmas, I finally managed to finish this family portrait for my dear friend Sinead, based on a black and white photograph from the seventies. She was a long time waiting for it; I had to learn to just put down the paint brush and let it go, instead of endlessly obsessing over the details and repainting a little bit here and a little bit there, over and over. It’s done in acrylics, which was a bit of a foolish choice for such a big canvas, (100 cm across and 70 cm high). It was drying too fast for me to cover such a large area comfortably, but live and learn.