Seabird trail picture a labour of love!

Graham Thew July 30, 2021

I was asked by a local artist Barbara who is championing a “Seabird Trail”in Hoylake if I should like to take part. The idea is that local artists each do an artwork on boards which will be mounted on panels on the promenade adjacent to the bowling green and tennis courts. The  resulting outcome will be a large free to see gallery of work each of which will include a local seabird.

Now I shall be honest and say there have been times over the last three weeks that I regretted saying “yes” to the challenge especially when considering the work needed to be on a piece of ply 4 foot x 3 foot and also in acrylics which have never been my medium of choice. Still I buckled down and prepared to take on the challenge.

I had opted to include a cormorant in my picture, I just think they are great birds, fun to watch, full of character and action.                    I especially like it when they perch and open their wings to dry  off in the wind and chose to depict my cormorant in this pose. I also decided to show a bit of old Hoylake specifically the forward Lighthouse which was demolished in the 1920s and the Sailing club which I thought would be appropriate and add to the interest of the piece. I researched old photos and found a black and white pic of the view and set about preparing a study. Well that became a full blown watercolour of about 60cm x 40cm and I used this to triangulate the work and set the drawing to a large scale on the ply board.

I have now had the watercolour scanned and copied and it is now available as a limited edition (50)  Giclee print.

The finished work in the studio waiting to be picked up and varnished.

The large picture took ages but I’m happy with the outcome and am confident it will be one of the more colourful and hopefully one of the more interesting contributions to the project. It will now be varnished and displayed in Hoylake.

Prepared for the Seabird trail. Available as a limited edition print

 

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