Bounty Aground (SS 5)
(34" x 48")
Bounty' aground at Oparee. Late afternoon and Bounty is aground. She sits high on sand while the ship's boats gather the anchors and row them to deeper water in a frantic effort to re-float her. There is no other transport home! As the sun sets so does Bounty settle - in the sand. Later Bligh suggests incompetence ... or even sabotage. The painting is as soft as the consequences are brutal. Turner once exclaimed when criticized for the use of black. 'If I had blacker paint I would paint blacker sails - as black is the color of death.'

Bounty Rounds the Horn (SS6)
(27" X 36")
As we gaze though nature's sunny smile we see her teeth fully barred ... and, as any sailor will testify 'to be at the mercy of the sea and to survive is to be born again.' So is the purpose of this work using warm darks to indicate the infinite depths of the southern ocean - and warm greens show the hopelessness of the situation as the waves rush up to block the light. In his 'snowstorm at sea' Turner painted his maelstroms by joining sky and water and all but obliterating the ship. Here and in 'Bounty's' launch from Tofua to Timor' the vessels are quite clearly depicted, hopefully without the sense of peril being diminished.
In bad weather fires were sensibly banned so hot food was rarely available to he crew - or the many injured sailors on board Bounty. The ship is rigged with minimum sail fore and aft and the wind is from the starboard quarter. After three freezing weeks Bligh finally gives the order to come about and sets a course for Capetown.  

Behind The Wave
(23" X 29")
The ghost of the Bounty lurks behind every wave. Here in the peak of a wave off the Amazon delta if we look hard enough we can just make her out. ‘So it was with Christian's fate for within nine years of the discovery of Pitcairn, three different stories were recorded relating to his death; (1) he had become insane and jumped into the sea, (2) he had been murdered by the native men, and (3) he had died a natural death. There were also three accounts of his being seen elsewhere, (1) in the English Lake District, (2) in Plymouth, and (3) in South America...’  

Bounty Searches for a Home (SS 7)
(50" x 50")

Sliding away over the top of a distant sea the mutineers began the long search for anonymity and a distant paradise. The darkness of the close up waves and the strange reflecting light indicates the vessel could well spend eternity sailing in circles - a thought widely held in Europe where to abandon duty was to abandon hope. Again the blackness of the rigging is not encouraging.

Small Waves (SS1)
(50" x 50")

You may have wondered how those bright lines on the shallow end of a swimming pool come into being - or when you wade in shallow waters, on a sunny day, how the patterns rippling across the sand are made? Well so did I. So I took myself to the seaside on a sunny day and looked and looked (all in the nature of an artist's everyday grind). So how do these bright lines form on the sand?
Well they form because the top of the wave is not sharp, but curved like a lens and like a lens, it focuses the light You should now understand the absolute simplicity of the whole scene; though there are a few points to be noted from looking at the painting.
1) The reflected light on the top of the waves gets lighter as it goes back (the angle of incidence with the horizon decreases. In other words the tops of the closer waves are slightly darker in value as they reflect a higher part of the sky.
2) The waves get smaller as they recede.
3) The almost vertical fronts of the little waves get darker and bluer as the water deepens. In other words the sand color disappears.
Every problem can be solved by a careful study or by another visit to the beach ... which is never a bad idea anyway! The figures are from sketches I made and I added the swimming costumes and altered there colors and to give a more satisfactory color scheme. Essentially this is merely a painting of a small wave. Like the next painting 'Cyberscape' it is the familiar things that we must learn to observe.

‘Bounty’ enters Matavia Bay, Otaheite
(29" x 71")
This large canvas attempts an allegory with the sunrise the beginning in the symbolic sense and a beginning of a visit in the real sense; it is also the beginning of the end as Bligh was to discover. This type of sunrise, sunset - beginning, end, transition was immensely popular in the eighteenth century where night was known as ‘a blind man’s holiday.’ The format is deliberately long and narrow to show the canoes coming from distant shores to welcome the strange visitors. Soon the natives will be swarming the decks of the Bounty. The simple style is in the manner of Cook’s travelling artist Webber but without his inclination for painting the locals as well built Grecian warriors accompanied by voluptuous Rubenesque damsels.

Portsmouth 1792
(29" x 39")

Home of the Channel Fleet under the command of the Earl of Bridport (Lord Hood). His flagship HMS Duke with the single topmast is the large first rate on the left while HMS Brunswick the vessel designated to host the executions is anchored off her starboard bow. It is the dawn of the day of the executions... In Dickensian terms ‘It came coldly looking like a dead face out of the sky, the moon and the stars, turning pale and dying as if creation’s only purpose was its journey into death’s dominion.’