David Burnett writes: The actor Michael Gough (obituary, 18 March) had a great affection for Ireland, and was an accomplished artist. He would have been delighted by the date of his death, St Patrick's Day. As a boy in the 1930s, he spent his school holidays in County Galway, riding and hunting. Half a century later, the success of the Batman films allowed him to enjoy his summers in west Cork.
What he called his doodles were a bit like the man – deceptively simple, but imbued with wit and gentle good humour. He adored art and its creators. The sculptor Elisabeth Frink and painter Mary Fedden were among his closest friends.
Before the second world war, he occasionally moonlighted from Wye Agricultural College to attend Canterbury School of Art. Portraits in oils of fellow actors' children, executed when he was out of work in the 1950s, gradually gave way to pen and ink and watercolour. He illustrated dustjackets, first-night and birthday cards, and whimsical but loving Valentine cards for his wife, Henrietta – to whose patient combination of stick and carrot he owed his resilience through the infirmities of old age.
Although frustrated by what he mistakenly perceived to be a lack of draughtsmanship, he used his highly individual eye to breathe fresh life into the everyday – notably old traction engines and farming equipment. He retained an almost boyish delight in life's absurdities that endeared him to all generations, and which in turn was reflected in his work.
He never found it easy. The confident lines of the final drawing often masked months of discarded sketches. More recently, he painted Christmas cards in support of causes he held dear: an Irish donkey sanctuary, the Actors' Benevolent Fund, the Injured Jockeys Fund (he thought jockeys nearly as courageous as the horses they rode). Even today, years after the Christmases they were intended to celebrate, his cards still adorn many mantelpieces.