This is Pegwell Bay in Margate and the huge thing with the propellors is the SRN4 hovercraft that could carry 200+ passengers and 30 cars across the English Channel. It ran from 1968 - 2000, and to my shame I never had the chance to rise it. Unlikely to happen now. Only one of them still survives and it's a static display in the Hovercraft Museum.
Yes, dearly beloved, I am a week into the 30x30 Direct Watercolour Challenge 2026, and I’ve already made 10 paintings which means I’m one third of the way towards completion.
To put this into perspective, I completed 7 paintings in
the first week in 2025. When you consider that I was off work with a broken
left shoulder so I had all day to paint if I wanted in 2025, then that makes
what I’ve managed in the last week even more impressive.
Ah, but you may say, yes, that’s all very well and good,
but considering you’ve completed the challenge in 2018,19,21,22,23 and 25, 6
times in 8 years, then why would there be any question of you not completing it?
Well, if you look at the list of years again, the two really interesting things
are the omissions. In 2020 I just never got round to starting it. In 2024
though I started in very high hopes and just blew it. It wasn’t because I didn’t
have enough time for it. I did no preparation for it and made he first couple
of paintings on pretty poor paper. It didn’t help, but then again my heart
really wasn’t in it, I lost enthusiasm because however hard I tried, the paintings
weren’t getting any better and to me seemed nowhere near the standard of the
best paintings I made in 2023. It became a daily chore just to get something,
anything down on paper and after 8 paintings I gave up.
In 2025 I got off to a good start, and that made all the
difference.
So, how have I done in 2026 so far? I decided to make at
least my first few paintings on a nostalgic beach theme and 8 of my 10
paintings so far have been just that. Click on the pictures to see them full
size
1) 1) Whitley Bay
3) 3) Grandpas
on beach duty. I’m a grandpa myself.
6) 6) The
Wreck – I found a reference photo showing this flying boat and I knew that I
was going to want to paint it
8) The
sandcastle builders – I had the guts to go a bit stronger with the colours here
9)Okay - so here's the two most recent that I hadn't posted yet.
9) Beach Donkeys - I thought that I hadn’t yet shown any donkeys on a beach yet. Deliberately didn’t show them giving any kids rides as I don’t really like that sort of thing.
10)
Ice cream on the prom –
I haven’t yet decided the theme for the next 10 – if any.
Watch this space. As a set I’m delighted with the first 10, though. I think
they’re the best first 10 I’ve made in any year of the challenge.
I shall finish with the seaside theme in a few days, but in the meantime it is still yielding some good things.
I'm really enjoying these beach themed paintings for this year's challenge, but I do think that I will change tack shortly. One more painting and I'm more than 1/4 of the way through the challenge.
The things you can find on a beach some days. So, still on a beach theme, but with a bit of a twist. This is obviously a 1940s/50s Flying Boat. It's not a Short Sunderland since that had a gun turret in its nose. It looks like the civilian Short Empire flying boat, but I don' really know where the beach is.
I will be honest. I cannot think of a more appropriate cartoon with which to bring this series of copies to a conclusion than this Linley Sambourne cartoon published in Punch on 29th November 1899.
We see three British soldiers outside their tents, raising
their mugs and toasting Queen Victoria. The caption is “The Queen! God Bless
Her!” It’s difficult to figure out exactly what the context of this cartoon
might be. Or rather, it’s difficult until you look more closely at the cartoon.
Look at the soldier on our left, and in particular, look at what he’s sitting
on. It’s a packing crate, and it’s marked with the Queen’s seal flanked by the
letters V R and underneath it has the word chocolate. Now it becomes clear.
These soldiers are toasting the Queen because she has sent them her gift of
Cadbury’s, Fry’s and Rowntree’s tins of chocolate! The very same tins that were
the start of my interest in the Ber War back in March.
Now, of course it is possible to criticise the sentiment
behind this cartoon. The idea of these simple minded Tommys toasting the Queen
for her gift , and being grateful despite the fact that they’re being poorly
paid and poorly led and will be treated like dirt if they survive and come home
after the war is not, I think, what Linley Sambourne wished to put forward, but
there is certainly some truth in it. And I have said all along that for all the
faults of the Boers and the Boer Republics – and these were serious – for all
of that it was an unjust war. But I don’t blame the ordinary British soldiers
for that, nor do I blame them for being people of their time any more than we
can be blamed for being people of ours. As Kipling wrote:-
We aren’t no thin red ’eroes, nor we aren’t no black-guards
too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints;
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints.
While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy fall
be’ind’;
But it’s ‘Please to walk in front, sir,’ when there’s
trouble in the wind,
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, etc.
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’
all;
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our
face
The Widow’s uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out,
the brute!’
But it’s ‘Saviour of ’is country’ when the guns begin to
shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ everything you
please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you bet that Tommy sees!
