from presentt to past; sepia drawings of the changing face of Portchester, UK

Cable laying firm

across the mud flats

scrap yard beyond the mud flats

 

 

respray at Trafalgar wharf

 

 

Trafalgar wharf structures at low tide

 

 

 

the missing south transept at St Mar's church Portchester

 

 

the west door at St Mary's church Portchester, church cleaner and tourist

shoreline sketches, Fareham creek and Portsmouth Harbour

"Apart from the fact that they float ,there's little to associate these giants with the romantic notion of a vessel. rather than roaming the seas, they're locked into rigid routines......They're standardised to the width of the Panama Canal; ship made to fit a world made to fit them. They might as well have been chopped off the production line...... They are ghost ships, devoid of life, save for the shadowy figures seen through letterbox slots let into their flanks."

"The Sea Inside", Philip Hoare.

Philip lives alongside and swims daily in Southampton Water.
Yesterday I sketched this container ship leaving Southampton water as coast was buffeted by a gale.

Demolition and construction : a journal in sketches

Today; demolition evolves into construction, the site is still being cleared  but a drill is being used for foundations;
below are a series of onsite sketches as I've observed the demolition of an old ship building unit to make way for a new unit manufacturing pipes and high tec equipment for the marine industry. The sketches are brush pens, sketch pens and markers on A4 pad

A time to break down and a time to build up

Series of sketches done at a demolition site Trafalgar wharf, just outside Portsmouth, Uk. I start with this the last in the series, because of the conversation with the guy on the right, "I'm normally working in construction rather than demolition, but this makes a change for me:
"everything has a time.......
a time to break down and a time to build up........
a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together"
Ecclesiastes, chp 3

Summertime cricket and it's looking good for England against New Zealand in the Test match

it was actually a very grey afternoon as I cycled past this local cricket match, watercolour  11ins x7ins on NOT 140lb.
it was based on very hurried pen and brush pen sketch in moleskin pad when I got  home

2 views of St Mary's church, Portchester, UK

original sketch: St Mary's Church Portchester; days of strong winds; brush pen and fine liner in moleskin journal

the second was done in comfort indoors; watercolour on coldpressed 300g/m2

for those interested in church history and architecture: St Mary's is a classic Norman church built 1133 for the monastic community which located in the grounds of Portchester castle. The community moved out twenty years later; the church over the centuries lost its south transept hence the odd shape, and the original chancel removed and replaced by a much smaller one