Sending Love

As the pandemic looked set to continue through the winter months, I wanted to create a second painting to mark this continuing journey. My first painting, ’Sending Hope’, had been so well received, with sales generating thousands of pounds for charity, I felt there was probably an appetite for a second painting. People were also beginning to ask when ‘Sending Hope 2’ would be released?!

With a week’s annual leave booked in November, and not able to go away anywhere due to the lockdowns and travel restrictions this was the perfect opportunity to create the artwork. I bought the same size canvas as the original of Sending Hope (100cm x 70cm) and started to work through some concept sketches for the painting. 

I felt the painting needed to reflect the darker mood and also the dark winter months with bare trees and more sombre colours. One of the things that has hit me hardest throughout the pandemic has been the visiting restrictions in the hospital and the impact this has on patients and their families. Community volunteers have been making knitted and fabric hearts to give to patients and families as a way of connecting them when they can’t see each other and I wanted to represent this in my painting.

Because it is now apparent this is a longer journey than we all initially anticipated, I also wanted the painting to reflect a journey – an uphill one! Of course, the bright and hopeful rainbow is there to greet us just over the brow of the hill.

The painting is designed to be a mirror image of Sending Hope and so they will make a neat pair when hung together. However, the original paintings will not hang together as I was delighted that managers at The Friarage Hospital in Northallerton (part of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) agreed to display the painting in their main atrium. Northallerton is my local hospital and also where my daughter was born so I am especially pleased to support The Friarage. 

Another really big thank you to Andy Richardson at Wensleydale Galleries and Framing for supplying the frame. https://wensleydalegalleries.co.uk/

**Prints and greeting cards are now available, with proceeds going to the Friends of the Friarage Hospital and Herriot Hospice Homecare**

https://www.herriothh.org.uk

https://www.friendsofthefriarage.org.uk