There are 4 of these head studies influenced by Ken Currie and Robert Macmillan. People coming into the gallery see them as scary but they were never intended to be seen that way. The background was supposed to make comment of the faces and not to be overly descriptive. Seems that that isn't the case and that maybe the background is stating too much.

They began as studies of proportion and appearance in the face and are not supposed to be portraits - A women who came in to the gallery today told me that she painted dead people. I looked at her again. Thinking she was a mystic seance type - but she gets commissioned by the relatives of the deceased from a photograph. I think that's why my paintings which are in the window of the Temple Gallery at the minute seemed to scare her. Haunted portraits of the Dead - sounds like some Horror B-Movie of the the 50's.