Saturday, 1 June 2013

Ships Out To Sea...

I’ve just returned from a lovely break in South West Wales with my wife, Diane and our son, Isaac (I say ‘break’ in the loosest sense of the word, as holidays with a lively four year old are not exactly relaxing if I’m honest, but still lots of fun on the whole). We found ourselves in a caravan atop a hill overlooking the sea at Little Haven, a really beautiful, unspoilt stretch of coastline with some breathtaking cliffs and long, sandy beaches and wildlife. 
Strangely sitting silently each day and night in the sea were some enormous oil tankers, forever in view and scattered across the horizon. There were up to ten sat there on somedays serving the nearby refinery at Milford Haven, which is located here because of the unusually deep waters so the tankers can get close.  I found them quite ominous looking, and couldn’t help but feel drawn to staring at them. I made several sketches on my i-pad during the week that featured them sitting dumbly, unblinkingly in the dazzling,  sparklng sea. I made these last two one evening, wandering down to a nearby lookout to paint as the sun went down. 

They were both completed very fast in just half an hour, showing just how fast the light changes as the sun went slinking away below the horizon. Each painting contains several different recorded times captured in just the one image, something that you could only really do in painting.

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