"Anyone Can be an Artist" - can they? by Julia Jones
Yes, says Claudia Myatt, "being an artist" is a way of viewing the world. Claudia is a marine artist who lives on a Dutch tug and has her studio in a boatyard. She provides illustrations for yachting magazines, drew a major series of instructional books for the RYA (Royal Yachting Association) and it was a happy day for me when she agreed to be the illustrator for m y Strong Winds stories. Because I do not think that anyone can draw boats. In fact I think most people can’t. Not boats in action; boats responding to the pressures of the wind and the resistance of the water; boats at the centre of a complex interplay of forces determined by the shape of their hulls, the set of their sails, the skills of the sailor. One of the children’s books I most enjoyed, years ago, was John Ryan’s The Battle of Bunkum Bay when lovable idiot Captain Pugwash conceived a master plan of sailing into the bay between the English and French fleets (to collect the treasure of course) protec...