Here we are, ten months of Covid-19 lockdowns, hardly leaving the house and moving from one hobby to another trying to stay sane! So it's time to revisit the sketch book and bring you up to date on a few drawings done in happier days!
In 2018 we were on the first cruise of the Marella Explorer after it joined the Marella fleet. A far bigger ship than we were used to and whilst we both enjoyed it, I prefer the smaller ships for the way in which you can strike up relationships with fellow passengers. On the larger ships you just don't bump into them as often. We joined an excursion that included Sorrento and Amalfi and it was in this second of these lovely places that I started to sketch the hillside in the A4 sketchbook, but then having to stop because of rain. Luckily for some reason I had started to draw from right to left against my usual habit so I was left with an A5 view which would probably have got smudged if I had carried on drawing to the left anyway.
Later in 2018 we were back on one of our favourite ships, Marella Celebration on a cruise called Venetian Vistas. Its first port of call was a place called Bar in Montenegro, where we strolled along the seafront, stopped in a bar in Bar for a drink and then sat on the low wall along the beach walk to do this. A very relaxing day. I could do with a few days like this right now come to think of it...
Korcula in Croatia. I have never yet been to a place I disliked in Croatia. In fact I'd go further and say there hasn't been anywhere in Croatia that I've been where I wouldn't jump at the chance to revisit. And indeed this was our second visit to this Croatian island. We had walked around the city, criss-crossed the hill from different directions, sat for a much-needed drink for a while and then braved the burning sun to do this sketch of the landing stage and martello tower (and to do the lamp post the disservice of making it lean over - it didn't really).
The following May we found ourselves in Monte Carlo for the day, within a few short days of the annual Grand Prix race. We were able to walk along the pit lane and enjoy the most expensive drink of Sprite I've ever had... I drew this from the side of the ship once I'd recovered from the walk and checked my bank balance had the funds to cover the Sprite!
Two days later we were in Livorno, Italy and went for a boat trip around the canals in the pouring rain. We had no coats and, being the last in the queue, we were sitting outside the limits of the awning that didn't quite cover the entire boat. Photography and sketching were just about impossible in the circumstances and I did this one later to accompany the blog entry of the day. The canals were lined with moored boats - something I find very hard to draw. So I left them out...
The next day we were in France at a lovely place called Sanary-Sur-Mer and I was feeling a little ashamed at not attempting any boats at all. This place was likewise full of the blooming things, so I picked just one and made myself include it in a drawing. I returned to our cruise ship later that day feeling full of self-righteousness and goodwill. Though it's a bloody awful sketch really...
Towards the end of the cruise, Barcelona gave me a better chance of redeeming myself. I surprised myself with this one to be honest and had I gone on to practice drawing a boat a day for a few weeks after this then I should have got over my reluctance to draw them. But I didn't and so I am... Still...
In September 2019 we were on our other favourite Marella ship the Marella Dream. Both the Dream and the Celebration have been sold and scrapped during the horrible year that was 2020 and we will miss them and like so many other fellow travellers are hoping with all our hearts that we can meet up with our friends, the entertainers Tomas and Maris who sang on these two ships for almost ten wonderful years. One of the joys of smaller ships is that they can visit lesser known and smaller ports and if you don't want the restrictions of an organised day out to famous places, you can just mooch about a town and feel more a part of life in whatever country you are in. This is Propriano on the island of Corsica. It gave us a perfect morning's walk along the seafront where we sat on a low but very hot wall while I drew this. Well I sat on it - Miss Franny upped sticks and left me to shuffle about on a nearby bench which had a smidgeon of shade, but which pointed the wrong way for me to draw. The buildings top right are a cemetery and the scrub bottom right were my imagination as it was a car park in real life. Afterwards we walked back along the roads into the town itself, stopping at a pavement cafe and just enjoying the bustle and swapping the occasional greeting with other cruisers who walked past.
Palamos in Spain has a beautiful beach but a coastline like Blackpool's - fairly straight and therefore not much in the way of rocks, headlands or mountains to make it all that scenic. It has some curved rows of arches every now and then to create a framework for viewing any antics on the beach and a cannon or two for bringing them to an abrupt end if they should get out of hand. By looking at an acute angle through them I managed to get a bit of land in. The shopping streets of the town near the harbour are pleasant to walk through and are waiting for a return visit so I can have a go at capturing those in the sketchbook.
I had long wanted to visit Portofino in Italy and on the September 2019 cruise we finally got to go there. The crowds made sketching almost impossible, I took photographs during the few seconds I managed to get to the front of the press of people and I did this drawing from one of them during 2020's lockdown. It's actually one of the views taken from the ferry from nearby Santa Margherita as we approached Portofino. I dare say I'll attempt more from these photos in due time - a watercolour from the famous Portofino viewpoint is included already in this blog article.
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