Eddystone Lighthouse
Back in the 'summer' of '15, I took part in the Eddystone pursuit race from Plymouth, around the reef and home again as quickly as possible.
The outward leg was a steady beat to windward in 20 knots of southerly breeze. After rounding the rocks to port it was kite up and away for an exhilarating roller coaster of a ride to Plymouth Sound.
Church studies. St. Edward's. Peverell, Plymouth.
When I taught Art, architecture used to form part of the A level curriculum and in order to embrace the discipline I always thought it desirable to engage with subject matter as a direct experience. This involvement lead me to a deeper knowledge and aesthetic appreciation of the buildings through which I and my pupils roamed.
Later, after retirement, I decided to keep up the visual study on a regular basis by utilizing my local church as a subject and exercise in drawing from observation. Initially this took the form of sketch-book, pencil, black gel-pen/water drawings, colour pencil studies and some larger colour pieces in paint or pastels. More recently I have experimented with working on plaster. I had hoped to work onto wet plaster, as the old masters might have done, but the ready mixed plaster that I purchased seemed to dry out too quickly for my intentions to realize, so I reverted back to the use of acrylics, though I very much enjoyed the quality that the surface and texture of the plaster added to the images I produced.
