The changing light on architecture excites Charlotte. She cruises the streets in her car until something catches her eye – sun on St John’s Wood stucco, ideally framed by bare branches and tangled creepers – and she settles down to paint, typically on Turner’s blue Ingres paper, her tiny Winsor and Newton watercolour box on her left thumb. She has Radio 3 or Radio 4 for company; cricket in the summer, rugby in the winter. If she has a commission requiring a specific angle, she will be out on a stool with her lap easel (this has been an invaluable part of her equipment for decades – it has a single, extending leg and rests on her knee). It wasn’t until she unexpectedly acquired a garden of her own, in Sussex that she began to paint flowers. Because they are her very own, they have become part of the rhythm of her working year.
