I've painted quite a few 'Penguin books' paintings, most often with orange as the dominant colour, but in this painting I've chosen a range of their Pelican books, non-fiction titles from the 1930s to 1970s. The books that I chose all relate to aspects of the unusual year we're in, classic books on diseases and pandemics and the state of the world.
With these book paintings, I walk a line between the clean lines of the originals, and the chaos that can be achieved with thick brushstrokes and spatters, and I let myself go a bit more towards chaos on this particular one. The paint is applied thickly in places, and in thin washes and drips in others. Some of the text is partly obscured, and there are splats and scratches in pencil and charcoal. It may sound a bit silly, but working on this painting was a bit cathartic in these dark and uncertain times.
The sides of the canvas are painted, and the painting is sealed beneath a glossy varnish. It's ready to hang without needing to be framed.