She's the Hans Hansson, a cruiser run  by Golden Fleece Expeditions who do charter expeditions to the Antarctic. The owner Dion Poncet had advertised for a semi-voluntary extra crew member for her latest trip so I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring....and I got the job!

So there we go, on Monday 16th January I'm away south for 6 weeks, South Sandwich Islands, The Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia. I'll pack my drawing stuff and see what inspires me down there in 'the freezer'


What an opportunity!

Now that Christmas is out of that way I can post about the three 'Christmas present' commissions I had this year. What made these interesting was the increasing difficulty and decreasing notice of the three. For the first I had a couple of months notice, nice, straightforward child portrait. No problem at all. A single, lovely reference photo that just about jumped off the screen and plenty of time. The next was a double portrait of two collies in late November, multible reference photos and a bit of compositional jiggling needed....Still no problem, a harder subject but a few weeks was still enough time to get the job done.

In mid December came the real test though, a big landscape commission (I find landscapes to be the toughest subject)...and I only had a matter of days...a very few days...to get it completed. It was a sunset view of a local range of hills called Rincon Ridge, fortunately they are right here in Fox Bay so I dashed out to get some references for the hills and foreground, a quick sort through my sky ref photos for a suitable sunset sky and a bit of photoshopping produced a workable composition so there I was, ready to go but it had to be finished, sent to towm to get framed and be back here before the big day. Really wasn't sure if I could achieve it.

But I did, Jane in the Pink Shop pulled out the stops to get it framed and sent back in time.
:-)

So here are my three Christmas commissions in order of increasing difficulty and tightening deadlines:










I learnt a lot from doing this painting, if I'm being honest with myself I was afraid of attempting large landscapes, the few I'd done felt like flukes. In finishing this commission I've managed to lay some of that fear to rest, I'm now quite looking forward to the next one (which BTW is already in the pipeline...and involves painting buildings as well as natural features....ulp!)

Another example of what the weather can do to trees in the Falklands, this example is based on a photo taken on Carcass Island. Happily this feeble specimen is not typical for trees on Carcass, that island is a real garden spot in our harsh climate.

There's palm trees there even...

....well....cabbage palms anyway.

For once I recorded the stages of this charcoal drawing, usually I'm in too much of a hurry.








Got another two commissions finished last week too. My lips are sealed though, they're both Christmas presents so can't be shown on here yet.

Well...my wife and I have agreed that we need the bedroom that I had occupied as a studio to be a bedroom again. Fortunately there's a big ol' room in the attic of the building I work in that was sitting empty. Until recently the terms of the lease meant I was unable to sublet any of the unused rooms but that's recently changed so I thought why not? I'll treat myself to it, after a day hauling a surprisingly large ammount of art related junk up a tiny narrow staircase here it is...my new studio, must be four times the floor space of my old one and with wonderful light, just need to stop the velux window from leaking and it'll be tip top.