Houseboat Mural! Bembridge, Isle of Wight

Painting someone else's memories..... Not every commission begins with my own vision. Sometimes it begins with someone else's memories.

When Rob approached me about painting a mural on the side of his houseboat, he wasn't asking for a tropical beach. He was asking me to capture a chapter of his life.

For many years, Rob and his late wife, Elaine, sailed and worked around the islands of St Vincent in the Caribbean aboard their chartered catamaran, welcoming guests from around the world. This mural was created to celebrate those memories.

For seven days my studio became a houseboat. Corrugated steel replaced watercolour paper, 30 mph winds and 35 degree heat became part of the process, and I discovered very quickly that painting three-metre palm trees is rather different from painting them in a sketchbook.

Thankfully, I wasn't completely on my own. My husband, Ilmi, joined me for much of the week, earning the rather official titles of Risk Assessor, Health & Safety Captain and Background Primer! It turned out he quite enjoyed mural painting too.

What surprised me most wasn't the scale of the mural, but the privilege of being trusted with someone else's story. My role wasn't to impose my own vision, but to listen, interpret and translate years of memories into something that could be enjoyed every day.

By a remarkable coincidence, I completed the mural on what would have been Elaine's 71st birthday. None of us had planned it that way, making the final brushstrokes feel especially poignant.

This project taught me so much- not just about painting large-scale work, but about listening. Whether I'm painting a family home, a ghost sign, the Heidelberg Project or a mural, I'm increasingly realising that I'm not just painting places.....I'm painting the stories they hold.

Thank you, Rob, for trusting me with yours.