A Welcome Sight - SOLD

A Welcome Sight

Oils on Canvas  22″ x 16″  Price: £585

Details: Sea King rescue.

 This scene is entirely ficticious, but engineers sometimes volunteered to be rescued as part of helicopter training.  The composition is based on the musical rules of thirds and fifths, particularly the intersection of the thirds often called the ‘golden mean’. The horizon is set on the top third and the waves are painted wet on wet to blend the colours.  Starting at the signature, the wave moves up to the lower right golden mean where there is a bit of a swirl before moving up towards the dinghy. The wave splashing onto the dinghy keeps the eye heading towards the aircrew who is positioned at the top left golden mean. The smoke takes the eye towards where I wanted to position the helicopter and completes the circle on the sea scape. The third above the octave is known as the tenth and the ‘eye’ of the helicopter has been placed on the tenth in the painting which gives a nice angle between the helicopter and the person in the dinghy. It is amazing how you can make a painting balance simply by following the rules of music. I deliberately avoided any detail in the clouds to add a sense of menace to the weather. I love painting the sea, particularly having been brought up on the Isle of Wight.

This painting was exhibited at the 2018 Guild of Aviation Artists annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London and I am pleased that it was awarded a ‘Highly Commended’ in the Leonardo (Westland) Rotary Winged Flight Trophy award; it certainly attracted a lot of attention. I really enjoyed painting this one.