Racing for St Malo

This painting is based on an afternoon last Christmas watching a number of boats in the bay off St Malo struggling against some very gusty wind and a rising sea. I thought it would be an opportunity to push on the heavy sea painting technique.

Racing for St Malo

Blockade

A second piece in my World War One maritime series is now complete. I wanted to capture mood and texture rather than make it a straight ship portrait, so I chose a wave top view from a distance.

The subject is the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea. The presence of a large fleet of British warships in the North Sea prevented German maritime trade for the duration of the war and kept the German High Seas Fleet bottled up in harbour for almost the entire war.

Blockade, The Grand Fleet in the North Sea 1916

Officer of the watch

I have long had a desire to capture the activity on the bridge of a warship on convoy duty in World War II. Despite the immense search power of the internet I have found relatively few pictures around which I could compose a painting.

The reason I think is that photography was not encouraged, except on official business, security being paramount. Therefore not many pictures exist, and fewer still that fitted the pose I wanted to execute.

I managed to find a few that approximated the angle I wanted to portray, below are the preliminary ideas followed by the final painting.

Initial concept and notes

Sketch of a possible colour palette

The final painting "Officer of the watch"