The Oils and Acrylics Group exhibition is on from 22 February, and convenor Roly Hermans says, “It’ll be interesting to see the works that have been produced during the holidays!” – and tells us what he did in the holidays:

Roly’s holiday painting project depicts the ‘Terra Nova’, a wooden screw barque built in 1884 as a whaling ship, but which gained fame as the polar exploration ship used by Captain Robert Falcon Scott expeditions, including his ill-fated attempt to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole.

Roly says his painting was more of a ‘study’ than a fully original piece, as it is based extensively on an existing unsigned  pen-and-wash drawing that he found in the online archive of 1960s/70s children’s magazine ‘Look and Learn’. He loved the picture’s composition so much that he contacted the current owner of the image, and paid for the rights to copy it for his own use.

He also consulted a lot of old photos of the ‘Terra Nova’ to discern what she looked like, especially for figuring out where all the ropes should go (he admits he’s a total land-lubber!).

Roly says he had some comment as to why he cropped the masts in his picture, rather than keeping the whole ship in frame. This is for dramatic effect. He wanted to emphasise the power of the ship under steam and sail, crashing through the heaving swells. He felt that by including the whole masts, the vessel would have been smaller in the picture and would give a totally different effect, emphasising the tiny ship facing the wide open ocean – just as valid an effect, of course, just not the one he wanted to portray!

This painting is intended for Roly’s own lounge wall, so you won’t see it for sale any time soon. But his agreement with ‘Look and Learn’ does allow him to sell art prints of his painting, so he’s exploring getting some made.

You’ll find more details about this painting on Roly’s art blog:  https://rolysart.wordpress.com