Painting & Photographing the Alma Doepel
I've been so busy this last year working on my website and attempting to learn how this marketing thing works (can I just say, ick!!) that it's been a very long time since I've done one of my favourite things.
I have a very dear friend, Maggie Cowling, who is a watercolour artist and over the years we have enjoyed going out to a location together to paint and take photographs - she the former, me the latter, obviously. It works beautifully for me as her art takes time, which means I am stuck in one spot for much longer than I would be if I were on my own, which in turn means that I am forced to really look around me and see things I might otherwise pass straight over. I love it. Plus we get to chat and have fun too.
So this weekend we headed down to North Wharf in the Docklands to study the Alma Doepel, which is a ship currently undergoing a major restoration at the Ocean Education Centre. We've been there together quite a few times over the years and Maggie has more or less become the artist in residence. Last year, to coincide with the Ocean Education Centre open day Maggie curated an exhibition of paintings and photographs of Alma produced by many artists over the years and will be doing so again this year.
It was wonderful to get back in the saddle, so to speak, and have a go at photographing Alma in all her naked glory - she is currently minus most of her outer hull at the moment! And I got to learn a new word: "futtocks". Say that a few times fast! If you have a look at the accompanying picture you'll see the large vertical wooden struts, the ribs of the ship, well those are the futtocks. A wonderful new word I shall be incorporating into my vocabulary as often as possible. I think I captured some interesting images too, mostly close up textural images that you'd be hard pressed to identify as a ship but none the less, they do document her current state. They'll be debuted at the exhibition in April after which I'll add them to the webiste. So stay tuned.
If you would like to check out some of Maggie's work, and I highly recommend that you do, please click right here.
Tiff xxx
