This was such a wonderful commission from a friend to cheer up a rather boring outside wall in an otherwise ravishing garden with espaliered trees, a fountain, a green wall and numerous plants. The lower terrace is accessed either by steps or through the lower ground floor bedroom and TV room. The former is bedecked with paintings and plates by the Bloomsbury set and the walls are painted in the signature blue and pink of Berwick church, decorated by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. I visited Charleston to immerse myself in their colours and shapes. I then enjoyed chatting to my client to see how the mural could reflect her late American husband, who had rescued the New York Parks (hence the maple leaf motif) and then gone on to head up Coutts. I was blessed with beautiful May weather and enjoyed painting numerous leaves in Edward Bulmer’s Invisible Green and otherwise used Mylands exterior water based eggshells - which come in good sized small tins, which were the basis for my palette. Later I sourced another Duncan Grant landscape and added this to the collection of paintings in the bedroom.