My studio table and floor is disappearing under pieces of paper and chapter five is well under way.  Writing and illustrating a book has its own pace and momentum; you have to keep a part of your brain connected to it or it’s hard to pick up the threads again.  On the other hand, twelve hours at the drawing board (including umpteen cups of tea, hanging out washing, raids on the kitchen and periodic dips into facebook of course) are about as much as I can manage.  As well as being immersed in all things to do with rivers, lakes and reservoirs, the first few chapters are now coming back from the typesetters for editing.  I have an ambiguous view of seeing the proofs, my haphazard layouts transformed into professional looking pages.  Just don’t ask me if it’s any good or not, I haven’t a clue!  Encouraging phrases from publisher and consulting editor ping into my inbox from time to time, so I’m assuming I’m on the right lines. 

Here’s my take on how salmon are able to find their way home from the Atlantic to their home river:  Caption is ‘Right, what’s our postcode?’

Meanwhile, my Wednesday art class has a few weeks to go until the end of term so we’re spending time drawing outdoors for the last few lessons.  This week a good time was had by all in Sandy Haven.  Everyone says they find sketching from life daunting, but the results were so much fresher than labouring to copy a photo, in spite of challenges like the strong breeze and bright sunlight.  Mike had an unusual obstacle to overcome whilst sitting sketching a bank of wild daisies.  A family of six came and sat between him and his scene, laid out a rug and had a picnic, obscuring his view without appearing to notice he was there.  That’s a marvel in itself; Mike is a tall and imposing presence and had never experienced total invisibility before.  Challenges aside, a good time was had by all -  call me single minded but you can never do enough drawing.   Sketching, after all, is just thinking with a pencil.

That’s enough – brain is not firing on all cylinders tonight, must have used up today’s store of wit and creativity in silly salmon cartoons and duck jokes.  Glass of wine, anyone?

‘Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain’.

Many blogs ago I mentioned our friend Ken Roberts who was setting off on a solo round the world cycle ride.  We’re still following Ken’s progress on www.acrosscontinents.org and his blogs are becoming more perceptive and fascinating all the time.  At the moment, on the brink of entering China, he has been visiting countries that most of us have never heard of or, if we have heard of them, have no idea where they are.   Many of them are torn apart by political corruption or civil unrest; none of them feature in holiday brochures, and most of them end in ’stan.  Through the middle of all of this pedals a lone Englishman, wrestling with visas and bureaucracy, unreadable roadsigns, unkept roads and extreme temperatures.  What it most striking, though, is not the expected obstacles that he faces, but the kindness of strangers.  Wherever he goes people feed him and ask no payment, help him out, offer hospitality.  Ken talks in his blog about the ‘many individual acts of generosity, the extent unimaginable in supposedly more developed nations ‘.  It gives you faith that humanity, one to one, has a connection and warmth that goes beyond nationality or language and belies the world view that the newspapers would have us believe, that the world outside our garden gate is a dodgy place.    Perhaps it confirms the view that life is a mirror to your attitudes; if you expect strangers to be friendly, they will be.  If you expect fear and hostility, that’s what you’ll get. 

Anyway, the blog is worth a look.  It also makes me realise how quickly we have come to take worldwide internet connection for granted; a few years ago we’d have had to make do with the occasional postcard.  It will be interesting to see how far the regular updates continue once Ken is in deepest China.

I think I become more interested in other people’s travels when my own adventures are mental rather than physical.  Yes, I’m still totally immersed in my RYA marine conservation book, which for a butterfly brain like mine is a major struggle.  More than halfway through now, just finished the chapter on coasts and beaches, so next up is rivers and lakes.  Apologies to all my facebook friends who have to put up with my regular rants when I get stuck and need to let off steam.  The next month or so will see the bulk of the work done, after which I am looking forward to a few days’ sailing, if the weather lets us and if I can remember how!   I did enjoy researching rockpools, though.  New knowledge makes you look at everything with fresh and more appreciative eyes.

Perspective in art is a glorious illusion, something I’ve been using haphazardly for years in my paintings in a ‘hoping for the best’ kind of way.  But the great thing about teaching something is that you have to learn about it first, so over the last few months I’ve been paying more attention.  Perspective in art is defined as ‘the appearance of things relative to one another as determined by their distance from the viewer’.  Everyone knows that, but what surprises people is the extent to which distance shrinks everything.  How many student paintings have you seen with giant sheep in a distant field, or an enormous cottage on a hillside?

I was trying to explain this in the classroom on Wednesday and, as is often the case, practical examples speak loudest.    We were talking about figures in a painting, and how as they recede into the distance, the eye level remains the same but the feet move in relative to the foreground figures (assuming that all the figures are standing on level ground and are the same height, of course).

Sheila stood at the back of the room; Gill at the front.  There was probably about 30’ between them, so Sheila appeared smaller than Gill.  So far, so obvious.  But how much smaller, do you think.  Have a guess.  Their eye levels remained the same as they were similar height, so if you drew a line along Sheila’s feet, where on Gill’s body did they line up?  Would you believe me if I said that Sheila’s feet lined up with Gill’s waist?  She was exactly half her size, and only the width of a room apart.  To be able to draw, you need to remove your perspective goggles, shut your brain up and treat everything you see as if it was two dimensional. 

That’s enough of that.   I did take time away from the drawing board today for a magical walk around Dinas Head.   Kittiwakes hovered on the clifftops;  I recognised them having spent several days last week studying and drawing seabirds for chapter three.   Why does knowing the name of something enhance our appreciation of it?  I’ll have a think about that one, preferably with a glass of Chardonnay in hand.

busman’s holiday!

There’s something rather depressing about a Travelodge.  Plain and simple and ‘no frills’ is fine, but what was most perplexing was the heated towel rail in the bathroom.  It was disconnected, with a neat tag attached to the end of the lead which said ‘This towel rail has been disconnected for your own safety’. 

It rather reinforces the feeling that you’re in a padded cell for the mentally deranged, because of course you can’t open the windows either, which have been locked for your safety.  You spend the night too hot even under the very flimsy duvet, wondering when all the air in the room will have been used up.

We were enjoying this rather dubious hospitality to exhibit at Beaulieu Boat Jumble last weekend and had an early start on the Sunday morning.  To add to our delight, it was raining first thing – the first rain in weeks on the one day we’re doing an outdoor show.   Perry asked the girl on reception if she had a weather forecast.  She frowned and said ‘no, sorry’…. then inspiration struck.  ‘I think it’s raining at the moment’, she said helpfully.  As Perry had just come in from the car park and his coat was dripping all over the reception desk, the information was not strictly necessary.  Ah well, it was very early in the morning, I suppose.

The day did improve – the sun shone, our new marquee didn’t blow away and the crowds were out in force.  Beaulieu is the largest boat jumble, a wonderful event that flies in the face of all the popular misconceptions that yachting is a posh sport.  Boat jumbles are living proof that most sailors like nothing more than rummaging around in a box of odd rusty shackles and heading home with a cut price length of rope, a pair of mismatched oars and some dubious but cheap antifouling.  In the spirit of the occasion we were doing plenty of discounts, especially on the new log books, and it was a good day.  I was very restrained, I thought, restricting my spending to a pair of dinghy oars (matching) and a dinghy rudder which will be the basis for a piece of artwork.  Eventually.    Here’s the outcome of last year’s Beaulieu ‘bargain’.  Why paint a rudder anyway?  Who knows, I just love the shape.    I could probably find something deep and meaningful along the lines of a rudder giving you direction in life, but perhaps not.  I’ll have another glass of wine and think about that one…..

Several days of thinking ‘must update my blog’ usually pass before I get round to it.  The plan is always to sit down in the evening with a clear head and a glass of wine and get inspired.  This rarely happens.  The glass of wine always happens, but not the clear head, or even the inspiration.  Today I’ve been wrestling with the current page of my book about the oceans; trying to find a fun way to put across the problems of over-fishing and the environmental impact is taxing to say the least.  I did do a sketch of a fish in a tutu – the fairy cod-mother – well, it’s a start. 

I also had a slight diversion from the task in hand which was rather enjoyable, in the form of a phone call from Julia Jones in Essex, skipper and owner of Arthur Ransome’s original ‘Peter Duck’ ketch amongst many other talents.  Would I be interested in producing an image for the cover of her forthcoming novel ‘The Salt Stained Book’?    I do love a commission that’s just up my creek!  First of course I needed to read the book – this was no hardship as it’s a great story, a modern and quite edgy version of ‘Swallows and Amazons’.  I’m still working on the design, but there’s more about Julia and her various doings on www.golden-duck.co.uk.

More distraction from the business of getting Chapter Two done came my way on Friday as I was booked for an afternoon drawing lesson with the U3A group in Neyland.  It’s always great fun teaching at U3A; everyone speaks their mind and is very up front about what they want to learn. Usually my prepared lesson descends into happy chaos and I just go with the flow.  This was no exception and turned into a bit of a rant about the reason for wanting to draw in the first place – as a means of connecting to somewhere special, spending time, taking the trouble to look properly.  Contrary to what the tv would have us believe, not everthing in life is a competition; we would always like to improve the way we do things, but sketching is a personal process not open to criticism.  Do enough of it and it will get better all by itself.  Life is too short to be frozen into inactivity by the fear of not being good enough!

Here’s my own sketch of a sunlit moment on East Trewent Head on Sunday, when I decided that I’d had enough of writing about the sea and trying to draw it when I hadn ‘t actually been to look at it for months…..

The left side of the page hasn’t scanned as well as the right….. use your imagination!

That’ll do for now… there’s half a glass of wine left and I’m listening to ‘Pentangle’ on cd while the family are involved in something noisy and American on tv in the other room.

When Thor Heyerdahl took his balsa wood raft  Kon Tiki across the Pacific  in 1947, he did it to show that in theory the Polynesian islanders could have originated from mainland South America.   There’s nothing quite like a bit of practical archaeology; personally, I’d have paid more attention to history lessons at school if they had explained the part trade winds and ocean currents played in deciding the course of human history.

When early seafarers set off in search of new lands to conquer, trade, treasure, knowledge, personal glory, or to escape from a crappy life on shore, they faced hazards and took risks that we can only imagine.  No weather forecasts, no accurate charts, no gps, no real idea of how long their journey might be.  But there’s one thing they didn’t have to face – waste.  Even in Thor Heyerdahl’s time, the oceans were still mostly pristine, but the problem of plastic waste in the oceans is a big enough issue now.  How big exactly?  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of non-soluble waste gathered together by the relentless motion of the ocean currents, is now almost as big as Europe,  a mess that can be seen from space as a shameful witness to human carelessness.  And there’s one gathering in the Atlantic too.

So what does this have to do with Kon Tiki?  Well, wherever there’s bad news there’s usually hope, and it manifests in many ways.  A handful of American campaigners are taking the lead (after all, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is off their west coast, and the USA gets through 1500 plastic bottles every second) and one of the latest schemes is the Plastiki expedition – a 60 boat made not  from balsa wood but from 12000 plastic bottles.  Plastiki recently set off from San Francisco to Sydney, by way of the Garbage Patch, to raise awareness of the problem.  The website is www.plastiki.com – it’s a bit mad, with great graphics and a day to day account of the trip, but not much in the way of background information on the reason for the voyage, though there’s a fairly sensible statement on their facebook page.  I’m not sure I’d trust my life to plastic bottles any more than to balsa wood – though at least anything made of plastic will outlast us all.  Good luck to the crew of Plastiki and her mission.  I’m going to give it a mention in my current book, which is gradually taking over my life, brain and studio, and is the reason why I’ve become so focussed on all things marine and ecological lately.  I’m still only on the first chapter there are six more to go; drawing board and table are already piled high with books, sketches, abandoned first drafts and assorted bits of paper.  Family are getting used to me babbling about plankton and ocean trenches instead of having normal conversation over the dinner table.  I will emerge blinking in the sunlight at the beginning of July and talk about something else, that’s a promise!

I haven’t drawn a picture of Plastiki yet, so in the meantime, here’s a krill..  one of the smallest creatures in the ocean that makes a tasty snack for the largest creature on the planet  – the blue whale, who chomps through an impressive 4 tons of these every day.

“A painting”, said a visitor to my studio as he pondered which picture to buy, “is a conversation”.  He chose the one, I guess, that spoke to him most eloquently, and I hope the dialogue is still continuing whenever he looks at it.  It’s true that the most effective paintings are those which leave something for the viewer to do, or leave something to the imagination; one brushstroke is worth a thousand – if it’s the right brushstroke.

I don’t mean that detailed paintings are always dull.  I used to paint ridiculously detailed miniatures after all, and I think they evoked a different kind of dialogue, drawing viewers into another world.  But however well a painting engages the viewer, it’s nothing compared to the Victorian view of art.  I went to a NADFAS lecture on Victorian Narrative Painting by Lizzie Darbyshire, a brilliant revelation on how to ‘read’ Victorian art, paintings which were designed in every detail to reflect and reinforce the values of the day.   Art was big business, and viewers expected to be able to read a painting like a book. 

One example, ‘The London Visitors’, by Tissot, shows a well dressed couple standing on the steps of a London landmark.  So far, so dull.  But the critics of the day were shocked.  The lady, it seemed, was not as ladylike as her appearance suggested. Why?  Because her eyes are staring out of the picture at the viewer, rather than cast down demurely and attending to the guide book her husband is browsing.  Ladies, apparently, did not make eye contact with men.  Her reputation is further tarnished by a small detail in the corner of the painting which we didn’t notice until it was pointed out – a cigar, lit, partly smoked and then thrown down on the step.  This, according to the Victorian mind map, meant only one thing; the lady had been flirting with a stranger.  This is a huge mental leap for us, but perfectly logical for the customs of the times, which dictated that a gentleman does not make approaches to a lady with a cigar in his hand.  Search for ‘London Visitors’ on google images if you want to see for yourself.

Enough of the history lesson, but it’s interesting to see how our visual shorthand has changed over a century.  These days we are as familiar with the icons used on computer screens as the Victorians were with their visual moral messages.  My own paintings usually have to tell a story – book illustrations for one, and cartoons for another.  The style couldn’t be more different from the classical style of Tissot, but I think that our pleasure in a good cartoon is because we can read it like a comedy sketch.  Here’s one I did for Practical Boat Owner a while ago (I can’t show you the latest one because it’s not out yet!)

I can’t remember the caption for this one… and you’d need to read the Dave Selby article it was attached to, but hopefully you get the drift!  Here’s another, more recent, to go with a hilarious article about crossing an ocean with a parsimonious skipper.  I think the caption for this one was ‘Dave would have plenty of time to regret eating that third weetabix’.

I’m so glad I’m not a Victorian artist.  Apart from the inconvenience of all those corsets and dresses, I don’t think I could do ‘demure and laydlike’, and I would so much prefer to make people laugh, or at least smile, than preach moral messages!

February on Planet Claudia has good and bad qualities.  On the one hand it’s still cold enough to wear three layers plus mittens, along with the cloud of guilt permanently hovering at not having started any work on the boat yet, let alone tidying up the garden.  On the plus side, this is the month for my two day singing workshop with Maddy Prior and Abbie Lathe at the fabulous Rhosygilwen concert hall near Cardigan.  At the risk of repeating the content of last year’s blog, there’s something truly inspirational about harmony singing.  Knowing little (well, nothing) about music theory, it’s a mystery to me how three or four parts of a song can come together and produce something that’s bigger and better than all the individual pieces.   

Now I’m as guilty as anyone of watching  tv talent shows occasionally, but they do reinforce the myth that people are either extremely talented or completely hopeless.  In other words, if you’re not Somebody, you’re Nobody.  No wonder the cult of celebrity has young people mesmerised; nobody wants to be themselves anymore, they want to be somebody else.  Somebody prettier, thinner, richer, famous.   Most of us are hungry for song, but few will sing for pleasure; we’d rather stay silent and plug in the ipod.   Whilst nothing beats the joy of listening to professional musicians singing live or on cd, that’s only the part of what music is for.  It’s a revelation to find that everyone’s voice can be coaxed out and improved, with technique and a bit of work.  Even mine.   According to Abbie, it’s about supporting your own voice, silencing the inner critic, and trying to be the best you can be, rather than giving up because you can’t sing like somebody else.  In singing as in life, nobody else can make a success of being you except you.

Oops, that wasn’t meant to be a lecture. 

Learning and teaching are both satisfying experiences.  As well as the regular Wednesday watercolour classes this week, I also helped Chris Stephens deliver a one day workshop to schoolteachers.  It’s not often my skills as artist and maritime historian are both required at the same time, but the content of the workshop was about weaving Welsh culture and heritage into the school curriculum in as many learning styles as possible.  It was a hugely enjoyable day; my main input was a session teaching the teachers about the Tenby lugger by learning how to paint one in watercolour.  Much hilarity followed, but everyone acquitted themselves well, even those unfamiliar with watercolour techniques. 

Why a Tenby lugger?  For one thing, they’re easier to draw than a larger ship such as a schooner or brig, and it’s topical in that the ever valiant and resourceful West Wales Maritime Heritage Society is about to begin restoring the last remaining example of a Tenby lugger in Pembroke Dock.  Have a look at their website www.wwmhs.org.uk to find out more, especially if you have any ideas for fundraising. 

Finally, we’re off to the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show next weekend, so the house is filling up with boxes of  ’stuff’ to take.  It’s an enjoyable show, with a great atmosphere, and we’re looking forward to catching up with everyone.   New for this year will be more jewellery, the new log books and sketch books and of course a new fridge magnet or two!

Mill Bay looking southeast out of the haven

I went to Mill Bay last weekend, a pleasant half hour stroll along the coast path from the car park on St Ann’s Head.  It’s the first cove on the left as you sail into Milford Haven.  The path dips down to the cove where a small valley tips a stream onto a rocky foreshore.  You could land a small boat there, but I’d only attempt it in a very flat calm; negotiating the rocks and finding a flat piece of sand to beach would be tricky.  Perhaps there was more sand in Mill Bay in the 15th century.  Perhaps there was a stone pier.  But it’s still an odd choice, as another half an hour’s sail brings you to the glorious sheltered bay of Dale, which is about as perfect as an anchorage and sheltered landing place could be, and would have saved the would-be monarch from an hour’s tramp along the cliffs.  Apparently he sent some of his ships round to Dale, but he preferred to be put ashore at Mill Bay.  I bet he got his feet wet.

Even more sensible than Dale would have been to save another day’s march and take the tide further upriver, to his birthplace at Pembroke perhaps, or to Milford.  Even if the wind was unfavourable, the tide would have carried the fleet upriver very efficiently.  Perhaps he had a girlfriend on St Ann’s Head.  Perhaps he’d had enough of being afloat and was desperate to get ashore.  Perhaps nobody knows, but if you do, please let me know.  It’s always interesting to look at history from a seafarer’s point of view.

St Anne's Head - design for a postcard of Dale (not quite finished!)

If Henry’s ship’s log was still around, I’d love to see it.  And talking of log books (ouch, what a contrived link!) and with a leap of imagination back into the 21st century, my newly designed Log Books for Little Ships are back from the printers – have a look at www.starfishbooks.co.uk for the details.  When I say the books are back from the printers, what I actually mean is that my studio floor has disappeared under several dozen boxes of pages and covers, so there’s just the small business of collating and binding them.   In the meantime I’m stepping over boxes to get to my drawing board.  Ho hum…

 

and then the most clever bit of all, mixing three bright primaries together and ending up with the softest dappled grey…..

Careful with the red.  Red is a bit of a bully and a little goes a long way.  The secret to a dappled colour is to let the paint mix on the page, don’t stir it into a homogenised gloop on the palette.  Where damp colours touch they’ll do their own thing.  Here’s a one minute seascape…..

How’s that for a very potted colour theory lesson!  Blended greys are so much nicer than tube greys.  If you want to mix some gorgeous dark greys and blacks, try cadmium red plus winsor blue or burnt sienna plus ultramarine.  Too brown?  Add more blue.  Too grey?  Add more red.