La Santa Maria

This little boat is very VERY old! It used to be in my dad’s bedroom when he was a young child and has been around for decades. I fished it out from our attic back in London, brought it to France with me as a memory as it has sentimental value. I also found it fascinating and very beautiful, despite being so old and wrinkly! If you look on the right sail it says very roughly ‘Santa Maria’, so it is clearly The Santa Maria, one of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first voyage!
Most of the time in my work I base paintings and drawings on still lives, interesting looking objects or things I find around the place. So when I saw this boat I instantly knew I wanted to study it, not because of the fact it’s a boat because boats are not really my passion or even interest but simply because of all the detail around it. The sails are so so old and wrinkly you can see little swirls and forms everywhere, and the wood is really old and rustic looking.
What I decided to do was take multiple photographs of the Santa Maria model, from various angles, and then fragment them even more on my computer, along with some editing to create interesting effects. Just pressing the ‘contrast’ button on iphotos made the sails look like gold, and you can really see all sorts of patterns come out of them. If I zoomed in on the middle of the boat it doesn’t even look like a boat, it looks like some sort of zig zag climbing frame or surreal image!
I did a few quick sketches of the boat, in a cubist way which was interesting, and one large drawing of the boat, on a large scale, keeping my eye on all the details. I really wanted to capture how old the boat was but I added my own touches here and there which I think made it looks more new. I am still working on a background for this drawing, but I’m not rushing anything, for now, it doesn’t need a background as far as I’m concerned, I don’t want any distractions from the subject matter.. it is just a boat.