I wanted to include a shipwreck in the scene to give a sense of danger and drama. I was partially inspired by the ships I have visited in the past, the Victory, the Cutty Sark and the Golden Hind, and looked up reference images of these ships to give myself a better idea of how tall ships looked. I also remembered the RSC production of The Tempest that I saw in 2016, which used a set based around the idea of a shipwreck. I have included images of the production below.

I also made several sketches of the ships I was researching

The main issue I found with this was keeping perspective consistent.

During the project briefing, I got a sense of childhood nostalgia and adventure stories from the part of the presentation about Action Transfers. I thought about how these memories could apply to my own childhood, and it made me think of the books that I read, specifically Treasure Island, The Edge Chronicles, Mortal Engines and Larklight.

(Left to right: Chris Riddell, Ian McQue, David Wyatt)

Many of the stories I loved as a child were inspired by pirates, and so I decided to look for further research, based on associated themes. I began by looking at Seascapes, both historic and contemporary.

  J. M. W. Turner

  Lily Rigby

I decided my next step was to do some experiments with painting the sea, and so I went to the beach to get some reference photos.