My initial sketches were shapes around my home town of Barrow In Furness which quickly focused to shipbuilding. After taking lots of photos I was drawn to the image of a decaying boat in Walney Channel which in a way depicted the decline of shipbuilding in our town.
BAE Systems has switched focus to submarine manufacturing and no longer builds ships. As my focus is on sense of place it would be easy to concentrate on the present and use submarines as my inspiration. However as my sense of the Furness Peninsular has been shaped by my childhood and my parents I though it would be more interesting to focus on the past and in the industrial heritage of our town.
It was the discovery of high quality iron ore that turned a once small village into a thriving town in the mid to late 1800s resulting in the formation of Vickers Armstrong Shipbuilders in 1871. It was at this time that my great grandparents moved to this area.
As well as looking for images of boats to inspire me, I was advised to pick up my sketchpad and pencil/charcoal to draw shapes, textures and shading to inform my work. Although reluctant, as I find it hard to express myself in 2D, I have found it an useful exercise to fully see the shapes required for my sculptures. Its a quick way to see what works rather than creating initially in 3D.
I am not wanting to recreate a technical boat structure more its essence, a sense of its history. The lean of a boat is very appealing in its shape as well as its skeleton form. Understanding how a boat is constructed was also a useful exercise. I also researched how other sculptors had depicted the subject in their work. Many were very technical, some more abstract, but found it useful to sketch them rather than cut/paste the images from the internet.
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