Also by Tony Watts. The Humber (1980) The Humber Yawl Club A History (2005) Holmes of the Humber (2009)

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1 An Eye for a Boat TONY WATTS is a retired architect with a lifelong interest in watercolour and this, combined with a love of the sea, has resulted in an increasing fascination with marine painting, the results of which can be found in this book. After open exhibitions in the East Riding of Yorkshire he has had work accepted by the Royal Society of Marine Artists for their annual event at the Mall Galleries in London. An Honorary Member of the Humber Yawl Club, he retains his interest in sailing, and his biography of George Holmes, the yachtsman, artist and founder member of the HYC, is published by Lodestar Books under the title Holmes of the Humber.

2 Also by Tony Watts The Humber (1980) The Humber Yawl Club A History (2005) Holmes of the Humber (2009)

3 An Eye for a Boat Marine Watercolours by tony watts Lodestar Books

4 Introduction 7 Endeavour entering Whitby Fishing Boats at Corralejo, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands 14 Beach Fishing at Corralejo, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands 16 Royalist in Albert Dock, Hull A Hot Day in Menorca 20 Cobles on the Beach at Filey 22 Against the Wall, Whitby Harbour 24 Contrasts, Fuerteventura 26 Cobles on the Beach, Runswick Bay 28 Harrison Line SS Merchant 30 A Brocklebanker in Harbour 32 Heliopolis Spring in Alexandra Dock, Hull 34 Arctic Corsair in William Wright Dock, Hull 36 The Last Ship from Hessle Shipyard 38 Pengarth, Royal Dock, Grimsby 40 Kittywake on the Humber 42 Amer Shanti in King George Dock, Hull Low Water on the River Hull 46 Cliffs on the North East Coast 48 A Coaster in the River Hull 50 Cobles on the Beach at Hornsea 52 Humber Shipping after Frank Mason 54 Fishing Cobles in Whitby Harbour 56 Condor at Corralejo, Fuerteventura 58

5 The Esk Bridge at Whitby 60 Spring Tide, Brough Haven 62 A Baltic Schooner in the Canale della Giudecca, Venice 64 S Giorgio Maggiore from the Molo, Venice 66 Towing out of King George Dock, Hull Old Fishing Boat, Corralejo, Fuerteventura 70 A Humber Sailing Trawler 72 A Rough Mediterranean 74 S.S. Mataroa 76 Weetamoe 78 Ellerker Haven, Brough 80 At Pin Mill 82 Cobles on the Beach at Flamborough 84 Menorcan Yacht 86 Crossing the Bar 88 Workhorse of the Sea 90 A Tunisian Fishing Boat 92 Conor O Brien s Saoirse 94 A Wild Sea 96 The Ochre-Sailed Schooner 98 The Old Tramp 100 The Canoe-Yawl Daisy 102 The Keel Canoe-Yawl Sheila 104 The Cutter Tally-Ho 106 A 1930 s Single Stacker 108 Menorcan Fishing Boats 110

6 For Jono, Andy and Matt

7 Introduction I COME FROM A SEAFARING FAMILY; my father was a seagoing engineer with the Brocklebank Line and his brother a Master Mariner with the Harrison Line. Living on the banks of the Humber in the village of Brough in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where the Humber Yawl Club has one of its bases, and being introduced to sailing at the club at an early age, it is hardly surprising that I developed a love of the sea, ships and boats which has stayed with me ever since. A boyhood ambition to go to sea was strongly discouraged by my father and uncle who had both seen hard times in the 1920s; my father came ashore at quite a young age to have a successful career as an aeronautical design engineer, and although my uncle remained at sea until retirement as a senior Harrison s captain he dispelled my romantic ideas of a life at sea with trenchant views. I had inherited some of my father s ability as a draughtsman, the art teacher at my school encouraged me to go in for architecture and I became an articled pupil at a practice in Hull and enrolled at the Hull School of Architecture as a part time student. The practice and the School both encouraged plein air sketching, and my love of the sea and the proximity of the docks in Hull ensured that I spent many hours there; in the 1950s there was no restriction on access, health and safety had not been invented, the port was busy, and merchant and passenger ships were still things of beauty. As well as the commercial docks Hull was a major fishing port and the fish docks were a hive of activity, with the colourful sidewinder trawlers coming and going offering a variety of subjects to the aspiring artist. The first painting I ever sold was a fish dock scene to a fellow student at the School of Architecture, whose ranks I had joined as a full time student in My life as an architect took me inland for a time but I soon returned to the East Riding, the Humber, sailing and the sea, and to a renewed interest in marine painting. Watercolour has always been my preferred medium and painting outdoors my favourite activity, particularly abroad with several painting trips to Venice and painting on family holidays in Menorca, Crete and the Canary Islands. 7

8 The obvious advantages are good weather ( I have always been lucky in Venice, even in winter), good light and plenty of subjects. This is not to say that plein air painting on home ground is not enjoyable but one has to be more aware of the weather conditions, one heavy unexpected shower of rain can ruin a watercolour. The beauty of watercolour painting in the open air is the small amount of gear required; a sketching stool, a pad rested on the knees, a paint box ( mine is 140x70mm with two opening flaps, one divided into three palettes), a water container clipped on to the paint box, a pencil, 3 brushes and a bottle of water. I do paint occasionally in oils but only in the studio where work can be left to dry in safety; I know many people paint satisfactorily in the open air with oils using the pochade box but it is not something I have been attracted to yet. My training in architectural draughtsmanship gave me plenty of experience in applying watercolour washes endless hours as a pupil colouring dyeline prints and so working wet into wet in skies and seas comes naturally to me; skies are generally left as the initial wash completed in one go but in painting seas I often work over the dry base wash with white gouache if the areas of paper I have left untouched to represent breaking waves, a bow wave or a wake need modifying or adding to. I find the gouache blends with the dry wash without hard edges when they are not required and by using a dry brush with the gouache a spatter effect for spray can be achieved. In a typical marine painting my method of working is to lightly draw the subject in pencil and then put in the sky working wet into wet, let that dry and follow it with the sea which may well be a preliminary wash followed by the gouache work if the sea is to be rough or needs further work. I usually take the sea to an almost finished stage before starting work on the vessels or whatever else is in the composition, as if the sea is not right (and things can go wrong with such a demanding element) time spent on the often detailed part of the painting would be wasted. This implies working the sky and sea around the shape of the vessel or other subject with a certain amount of careful painting required to achieve this; because of the luminosity of the watercolour which I try to maintain (apart from the limited use of gouache in the sea). I do not overpaint the subject onto the sea or sky washes. When working in the open air a certain degree of speed in execution 8

9 is desirable, weather conditions and the light are ever changing and sitting on a sketching stool for hours is not pleasurable. In hot climes the paint can dry rapidly and on home ground there is always the chance of a shower to interrupt one s progress. I find a preliminary sketch takes up to half an hour and most of the watercolours in this book that were painted en plein air were completed in an hour to an hour and a half. I generally have watercolours mounted in antique white board with a generous margin and a single wash line. All painters are influenced by what has gone before and I have been lucky in living in an area which has a strong maritime painting tradition; galleries in Hull, Scarborough and Whitby have many examples to study and a little further north the Staithes Group painters have left an enduring archive. Locally my principal influences from the past have been the two artist yachtsmen Albert Strange and Frank Mason, the Hornsea artist Harry Hudson Rodmell and from more recent times the late Colin Verity, a fellow architect and friend, a distinguished member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists who encouraged me to submit work to the Society s annual exhibitions at the Mall Galleries. Like many painters of my generation I have been much influenced by the work of Edward Seago, a continual source of inspiration for big skies, moody seas and free painting, appreciated by fellow painters if not always by the critics. I have always enjoyed the challenge of exhibiting and having work chosen by selectors; the Winter Open Exhibition at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull, the Haltemprice Art Exhibition in Cottingham and the East Riding Open Exhibition in my now home town of Beverley have included my paintings over the years, as have several local galleries. I had one-man exhibitions for many years at the Maltings Gallery, Beverley (usually of 50 paintings) and was a gallery artist at both Taylor-Pick Fine Art and Harland Rise Gallery in Beverley. I exhibited at the Royal Society of Marine Artists from 1991 to 1995, only stopping submitting work for consideration because of the difficulty of arranging safe transport of the paintings from Yorkshire to London at that time. Abroad I painted for the Galleria Del Sol in Menorca and the Galleria Del Arte in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. I have been involved with the Missions to Seamen in Hull since my practice designed 9

10 their Flying Angel Club in the city, and organised on their behalf an annual art exhibition at the club to raise funds for the charity. Between 1984 and 1998 these events took place yearly on a single evening, were well attended with up to 150 paintings on show and with a high rate of sales producing a worthwhile income for the Mission. The paintings in this book cover a thirty year period and have been painted alongside landscapes and townscapes. In marine painting I find my current interest is in painting the sea itself in its various moods; commercial shipping, with one or two exceptions, is no longer an appealing subject. I think naval architects must despair at some of the briefs that they are given these days, but thankfully there are the sail training ships, restorations of historic sailing ships, the ubiquitous Thames Barge and yachts large and small to provide subjects for the brush. Working from photographs or lines is all very well and has to be resorted to sometimes but there is no substitute for working in front of the subject in the open air. Fortunately cobles still fish from the Yorkshire coast, there were Thames Barges at Pin Mill when I last visited (I have heard they have since migrated), Brough Haven on the Humber, one of the homes of the Humber Yawl Club, provides yachting subjects for me, and abroad colourful fishing boats and other craft are to be found widely. Around our coast there is still a wealth of maritime interest for those who are prepared to search for it with sketching stool in hand, epitomised by the members of the Wapping Group whose work I much admire and the wider-spread community of the Royal Society of Marine Artists. 10

11 An Eye for a Boat

12 Endeavour entering Whitby 1997 When the replica of Endeavour visited Whitby on her maiden voyage tens of thousands of people turned out to see her; vantage points were at a premium and my wife and I managed to find a space on the west pier. Even though I had my sketching gear with me there was no chance of even a quick sketch because of the crush and I had to resort to the camera; this watercolour was one of several painted later in the studio. 12

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14 A Brocklebanker in Harbour Painted entirely from imagination, an atmospheric study of a harbour scene in the late 1930 s. No preliminary drawing was done and most of the work was wet into wet to achieve the effect of mist and smoke. The water lower right was created with a wash including ultramarine to produce the sedimentation. 32

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16 Menorcan Yacht Based upon the local fishing boat hulls an attractive class of yachts has been developed in Menorca; locally built they are substantial fibreglass boats with a gaff cutter rig, about 30ft long and 9ft beam. Painted from memory immediately after seeing the yacht reach past in the Fornells inlet, an extensive enclosed arm of the sea, I think the details are more or less correct certainly the impression is and I was familiar with the type from seeing several in the Mahon marina. 86

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18 Lodestar Books 71 Boveney Road London SE23 3NL United Kingdom Copyright 2012 Tony Watts All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN Paintings photographed by Andy Watts Photography Set in Copperplate Gothic and Franklin Gothic Printed in the UK by MPG Biddles, King s Lynn