Sailing to Italy

This has been kicking around at the back of my mind (and pages and pages back in my sketch book) for ages. Even before I did the Shelley storm for Field Place. A boat instead of a house this time - not sure where it's going yet. 

The Maria Crowther heading for Naples. 

And death. 

With a 3 day storm in the Bay of Biscay between and echoes of one of my favourite painters, Alfred Wallis, thrown in for good measure.

And memories of a frightful couple of days and even worse nights in my youth which I shall never forget - on a rust bucket of a ferry grandly called the Ernesto Anastasio - in an Atlantic storm in December when only a miracle saved me from being crushed to death between shifting cargo on deck, and we all heard the terrifying boom which signified the propellor coming out of the water. That's how big the waves were.

Oh, yes. I can identify with the storm that hit the Maria Crowther ...

Red Ball

This sort of showdown is not uncommon on the beach.
Okay, so I arranged it in a decorative way ...
That is my prerogative!

I have been doing a bit of decluttering today ... Possessions are terrible things.
Would that all mine could be condensed into one red ball.

So, this painting is obviously an allegory.
I get it now

I have a camera ... again

So here is the latest of the small studies I have been painting whilst on a roll with my sketchbook doodles over the past few days. Done last night with the tremendous sound of the Atlantic drifting through the open door.

The sea here is unleashing all its customary seasonal fury at present. I saw a large ship lit up on the horizon and couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor saps on board who had fallen victim to the advertising blurb about sunny winter cruises round the Canaries...

Life's a sandbank

I took this picture in to be framed today in readiness for the December show. It's called Cut Off, and I must say I know how they feel at the moment. Metaphorically that is. I wonder if that's what spending too much time swimming as I am doing lately does to you. Dehydration probably.

Anyway, this painting depicts a famously treacherous stretch of the Witterings coast where such occurences are not uncommon though seldom fatal thanks to the vigilance of the lifeguards. When I was small I was fascinated by tragic tales of long lost travellers (and their horses - my sympathies were all for the horses) being swept away or sucked under as they crossed the sands of Morecambe Bay, so I suppose that is why these images of the cruel sea closing in on hapless souls bubble up from time to time.