My latest painting is a bit different, to say the least! It’s a toy paddle steamer towing a large old-fashioned warship against a vivid sky.

When my first grandson was born a couple of years ago, I painted him this picture of an oversized Buzzy Bee toy being marshalled at the airport.

So when my second grandson was born recently, I of course had to paint something for him too. And I wanted his picture to be just as quirky.

I’ve always liked the famous Turner painting of the ‘Fighting Temeraire’, so thought this might be a great subject to convert to a children’s painting.

‘The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838’ is an oil-on-canvas painting by the 19th century English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner.

It depicts the 98-gun HMS ‘Temeraire’, one of the last second-rate ships of the line to have played a role in the Battle of Trafalgar, being towed up the Thames by a paddle-wheel steam tug in 1838, towards its final berth in Rotherhithe to be broken up for scrap.

Turner’s painting hangs in the National Gallery, London, having been bequeathed to the nation by the artist in 1851.

In a poll organised by BBC Radio 4 in 2005, it was voted the nation’s favourite painting. In 2020 it was included on the new £20 banknote.

Here’s my painting at an early stage. Reproducing Turner’s impressionistic sky was much more difficult than I had expected. I tend to be a very tightly controlled painter, so found it a challenge to loosen up.

This was also not helped by changing the format from landscape to portrait. I did this to make it match the former of the Buzzy Bee painting. But it does mean the colour change in the sky is much more compressed than in Turner’s painting.

However, the end effect is quite dramatic, even if not that realistic. As my brother commented, there’s a reason why mere mortals like us can’t do skies like Turner’s. But I’m happy with it.

There are three vessels in my painting. The ‘Temeraire’, of course, riding high without its former heavy load of guns, ammunition, provisions and crew. I also tried to paint her in Turner’s impressionistic style, without my usual attempts at authenticity and detail.

Then there’s the little paddle steamer. I wanted her to be the main character of this painting, so she’s brightly coloured to immediately catch the eye and set the scene that this picture isn’t anything real!

In the background is a ship in full sail. She also appears in Turner’s painting if you look carefully.

Turner’s painting also shows the large white sail of a barge that is obscured behind the paddle steamer. I decided to leave this out, as it distracted too much from to the toy boat.

I made the paddle steamer look vaguely like it is from a well-known toy brick company. It has a plume of fire-streaked dirty black smoke, just like Turner’s painting.

Here’s my finished painting. Just like Turner’s painting, you can see the moon on the left and the setting sun on the right. I’ve copied Turner’s artistic licence here: the setting sun’s position is wrong, because the sun sets in the west, while the Thames estuary is at the river’s eastern end.

Note I’ve even included the floating log and barrel that are in Turner’s painting!

Hopefully my grandson will enjoy this painting. It’s never to early to start educating about the amazing art that’s been bequeathed to us over the centuries.

And if you would like a copy of this picture for your own offspring, I plan to have fine art prints available within a month or two.

A pause in my painting schedule, as I work on a 1:96 scale model of the famous clipper ‘Cutty Sark’.

Whilst visiting local art studios during the recent Kapiti Coast Arts Trail, I happened to mention to one of the artists that I was a painter myself, and that I enjoyed painting ships, planes and so on.

She immediately called into her house for her husband to come out, and got him to show me his hobby room. Wow, what an amazing collection of plastic kits he had,  mainly aircraft.

Much to my astonishment he reached up to a top shelf, saying, “Do you want this?” He pulled down a huge boxed kit of the ‘Cutty Sark’. “I’ve had it for years,” he continued, “but will never complete it.”

I asked what he wanted for it, but he said it was a very old kit, and he was just happy to give it to someone who might have a go at putting it together.

So I walked away from the studio holding this massive boxed kit, along with a load of after-market model ship accessories, and a set of exquisite plan drawings of the real ship … but no art!

So far I’ve finished the hull and deck, and begun installing the masts. I haven’t built a model ship before (other than very small ones for my hobby of wargaming). So working on this kit will be a real challenge, especially once it comes to the complicated rigging.

Working on this large kit will hopefully give me a better understanding of how real sailing ships work, and thus more accuracy in my paintings of them.

My latest painting brings me back to a subject I started my painting ‘career’ with back in 2022: Wellington’s tugboats.

One of my earliest paintings was of the old steam-tug ‘Natone‘. Now this latest painting brings me almost – but not quite – to the modern day.

My new painting depicts the tugs ‘Ngahue’ (left) and ‘Toia’ (right) on a gusty grey day, battling across the choppy harbour towards the Wellington wharves some time in the early 2000s.

These iconic bright red tugs, along with their sister tug ‘Kupe’, were common sights for Wellingtonians for around 40 years, assisting ship movements in and out of the harbour. Locals affectionately nicknamed them the ‘Little Toots’.

‘Ngahue’ was launched in Whangarei on 15 October 1977, and arrived in Wellington on 3 December 1977.

She was propelled by Voith-Schneider multi-directional unit, which provided superb reliability.

‘Toia’ first sailed into Wellington Harbour on 22 February 1972, after its delivery voyage from Whangarei Engineering & Construction Co Ltd.  Her sister-ship ‘Kupe’ had been delivered earlier in 1971.

During her time in Wellington, ‘Toia’ assisted 32,700 vessels and used 5.4 million litres of fuel.

The end of New Zealand service for ‘Toia’ and ‘Ngahue’ (renamed ‘Delta 200’ and ‘Delta 300’ respectively) came when they were sold in 2014, bound for a new life in Dubai. Ship handling work at the Port of Wellington had by then passed to the current Asian-built tugs ‘Tiaki’ (2007) and ‘Tapuhi’ (2012), which each have bollard pulls of 68 tonnes – more than twice the 28-tonne pulls of ‘Toia’ and ‘Ngahue’.

By the way, I plan to have prints available of this painting in due course. For more info, please contact me.

How I did this painting

Learn more about how I went about researching and painting this picture ….

The idea for my painting first sprang to mind when I stumbled across this picture of two New York tugs by Dirk Verdoorn, ‘⚓️ Peintre Officiel de la Marine‘ (official French Navy artist).

I really loved the way he conveyed the movement of the two tugs ploughing through the choppy waves. I also liked the looming grey sky and the misty outline of the Statue of Liberty in the distance.

I determined to do something similar set in Wellington. I contacted Dirk to ensure he was OK with me basing my painting on his composition, which he kindly gave me permission for.

I’ve also always much admired this Ernest Papps painting of the East By West ferry heading across the harbour towards Wellington.

Whilst my own painting isn’t specifically based on anything in this picture, it was in the back of my mind as I worked.

As with all my paintings, I first spent a week or two on research for reference materials.

For example, I needed a suitable photo of the Wellington skyline as seen from the harbour. I found the above picture online. I especially liked how it included a container crane, which I thought might make an interesting feature in my painting.

Of course the most important reference materials I needed were pictures of the tugs themselves.

There are loads of photos of these iconic Wellington tugs online, but very few showing them in anything other than a calm sea. So I concentrated on finding a picture based only on the angle I wanted, and I’d do the conversion work to put her in a choppy sea.

Using photos too closely is often frowned upon by artists. But as boats are such complex shapes, I like having a photo from more or less the same angle as I intend to paint them, so that I can get my lines and proportions right. The above picture of ‘Ngahue’ was perfect for my purposes.

A suitable photo of a tug’s stern was tricky to find. The perspective of the few stern-view images I came across didn’t align to my painting.

In the end I settled for this photo of ‘Toia’ tied up at the wharf. Although she wasn’t shown at sea, with a bit of fudging I could get the angle and viewpoint about right.

The following photos show how I went about my painting from start to finish.

I began by painting the sky and basic sea colours on my 30″x20″ canvas.

Ignore the loosely painted buildings – I didn’t like them and later re-did them completely, as you’ll see in the next picture.

Following my reference photo, I painted the buildings as simple blocks. I tried to be as accurate as I could with the location and shape of each building, but some areas were cluttered and confusing, so I had to simplify them.

I mainly used shades of grey, but with the occasional block in creamier tones.

It was fun painting the details on all the buildings. I used brush pens to straighten the edges, and to draw the lines of windows.

I undercoated the silhouettes of the tugs in green, as this colour contrasts with the eventual red they would become (a guest at my house asked if I was painting Alcatraz Island!).

Note that I had also covered the background buildings and hills with a light grey wash to make the atmosphere appear misty.

With the outlines complete, I began painting the the tug on the right. At this stage she still lacked some details such as the railings.

Whilst I used my reference photo to identify what features went where, I changed the perspective slightly to match the other components of my painting.

I began blocking in the red of the left tug. I used red acrylic paint that was actually developed for model makers, as it is wonderfully opaque and covers well. 

Painting the waves and spray made my tugs really start to come alive. But I eventually decided this teal-green colour was far too tropical, so you’ll see in the next images how I later changed it to a more olive-greyish colour.

Using shading and highlighting, the ‘Ngahue’ started to take shape. Note how, unlike the ‘Toia’, she doesn’t have a fire-fighting platform above the flying bridge – this was true to life.

Here you can see my changed sea colours, which I think work much better with the grey sky.

I always enjoy this last stage of a painting, where I add all the myriad details to make the subject as realistic as possible: portholes, window frames, gratings, railings, flag, tyre fenders, and so on.

The painting needed a bit more life, so I added a crewman on the flying bridge of the’Ngahue’, and even three seagulls in the sky!

And there they are, ‘Ngahue’ and ‘Toia’ heading back to the tug base after assisting a large ship to enter or leave the Port of  Wellington.