Melissa Scott-Miller's painting is a novel gift for Nina Bawden
Published: 1st July, 2011
by PETER GRUNER
WORLD-famous Angel author Nina Bawden saw her beloved Regent’s Canal captured in all its glory in an oil painting and instantly fell in love with it.
Now the colourful work by Barnsbury artist Melissa Scott-Miller – measuring two-and-a-half by three-and-a-half feet – has been given pride of place in Ms Bawden’s living room so that she can look at it as often as she likes.
Ms Scott-Miller, a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, spent weeks sitting by the canal at the end of Noel Road, where Ms Bawden lives, to sketch and paint the stretch of waterway close to City Road Basin.
Ms Bawden, 86, who has lived in the road for 35 years, and her late husband Austen would always walk and sit by the canal. He died in the Potters Bar rail crash in 2002.
So when their daughter Perdita Kark saw an A4-size print of the painting, she knew she had to have it for her mother.
“There was a phone number for Melissa on the print,” said Perdita this week. “I rang her immediately and said I wanted to buy the painting.
“It really is a vivid and beautiful work. Mum can’t get out much these days so having the painting reminds her of happy times down on the canal.”
Ms Scott Miller was delighted that her work was being appreciated. “I’ve always been inspired by local scenes,” she said. “And the canal down by Danbury Bridge is particularly beautiful.”