Original Marine Paintings

I've just completed a new painting depicting Captain George Vancouver's HMS Discovery approaching the Hawaiian Islands on 10 March 1793. This continues the series of exploration voyage paintings I started last year, where I'm focusing on documented moments from expedition journals.

Vancouver's journal entry for that day provides the exact scene:

"I availed myself of the prevailing favourable breeze, and bore away along the coast about two miles from the shore... its surface was very uneven but had yet a verdant and fertile appearance."

This sort of specific description is very useful for setting the imagination in motion, and has a lot of ingredients from which to build a concept.

HMS Discovery was named after Captain Cook's vessel (Vancouver had sailed with Cook as a young midshipman), and his 1791-1795 Pacific expedition was one of the most accomplished of the age. The painting shows Discovery under sail with the dramatic volcanic slopes of Maui in the background. I reconstructed Discovery from the excellent plans drawn by Mark Myers, and a variety of other sources including paintings and models. The landscape is rendered accurately by generating a reference model from Google Maps data and from local photography.

The whole piece took about 40 hours from initial sketches to final details, capturing a specific instant in history. Discovery is shown here on oil on panel, 20" × 16", and is available for acquisition.

Currently on the easel are two marine subjects. The first is the clipper ship Titania, reconstructed from the beautiful model held at the National Maritime Museum. These fast merchant vessels represented the pinnacle of commercial sail in the mid-19th century, and a clipper under full sail makes a dramatic subject.

The second marine piece depicts Captain Cook's HMS Resolution approaching the island of Raiatea during his Pacific voyages. This continues the series of exploration voyage paintings I began at the end of last year, focusing on the moments when European vessels first encountered dramatic landscapes, particularly in the Pacific — combining historical research from the journals with some tropical light and atmosphere.

Alongside the marine work, I'm also developing four aviation pictures intended for submission to the Guild of Aviation Artists annual exhibition. After the success of last year's small pictures, this is a series of 14 x 20 inch paintings all of seaplanes (so still somewhat on-brand!).

I'll share progress updates on all these pieces as they develop, you can be notified of new posts by signing up to updates by subscribing above. The Titania painting is shown here moving from initial pencil studies to the second layer of oils - and now it's on to the rigging...

Many collectors are interested in seeing how we move from an idea to a finished painting. Using a recent commission as an example, here are the four key stages of the process - you can select the images above to see how it all comes together.

1. The Concept & Sketch

We begin by discussing the subject that you're interested in. In this case, we wanted to show Celandine passing the Queen Elizabeth II bridge with Purfleet in the background. I created a series of pencil thumbnails to explore some possiblities, showing the ship from different angles. This helps to understand how the idea works in practice and we discussed these to determine the general direction of the image.

2. The Master Drawing

Here, one of the early sketches stood out as the one to develop, and we refined it further, including testing three time of day options. This led to the master drawing stage, which is where the image is drawn out full size, and in detail, before being transfered to the canvas for painting over.

3. Starting to Paint

I then applyed the first layer of oil paint, to establish the main subjects and colouring rather than detail. This phase establishes the core of the painting and we discussed the result of this before moving onto the final step.

4. Refinement

Layers of detail are added in one or two new layers of paint. This brings in all the fiddly stuff like railings and rigging, as well as refining the general accuracy and colour. Once the painting is dry, it's varnished to protect the paint, and we arranged framing and delivery.