Once upon a time

For several years I carried a 5" square chunky sketchbook with me whenever we travelled, along with a small box of water colours, a couple of pencils a drawing pen and a pencil sharpener.   In Orkney I also learnt the joys of soluble graphite pencils - the only thing that will draw on wet paper and giving some wonderful effects.

This was painted on the private pier of a cottage at South End in Stromness, from where you have a grandstand view of the fishing boats coming in and out and the North Link ferry  'Hamnavoe' - the old Norse name for Stromness.

In the centre is a creel stone - a suitably sized and shaped rock within a bespoke wooden frame, once used to anchor the creels.   When I discovered these - 2001 - there seemed something basic but important in the shape of these and I continued to draw them for several years thereafter.
Some of Paul Feiler's Cornish paintings of the early 1960s have similar qualities