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Artist Interview with Bowsprit Magazine USA

What motivated you to begin drawing / painting in the first place?

I guess that I’ve been drawing, making marks, images and painting since before I can remember, it’s something that’s always been a major part of my life. I do have my parents to thank for providing support, encouragement and endless quantities of paint, crayons and pencils ……and mountains of paper to doodle on, even at junior school I was allowed off Monday morning maths class to go on sketching trips to the countryside and draw from life, bless the teachers for their interest and help.
Later on in my education I didn’t fancy going to art school to be processed into the current trend or mood of the period so I took a tangent to the system prevalent at the time and somehow scratched a living doing my own stuff.

What was the genesis of your interest in maritime / naval subjects?

Having the union of an Irish mother and Portuguese Father …… dad was born to the land which produced great navigators, fearless seamen and explorers so all this may have acted as a spur towards maritime leanings, that and the first reading of Treasure Island as a 8/9 year old. From there to Marryat, Conrad, Melville and Twain…those guys really do give you a burning desire and insatiable curiosity for wonderfully complex moods, characters and stories, discovering them as a kid from Yorkshire was akin to being hit in the temple by a swing boom.
I was, like a million readers before me, taken to a new worlde…ah! deep joy.

How do you research your subjects?

When working on a commission for a painting and the ship or yacht exists or is in replica and if time permits I usually try to sail on them even if that means a trip around the bay for an afternoon. Failing that I will catch them in dock, climbing through the shrouds and rigging like a monkey with camera and sketchbook in hand, taking on the spot photos, drawings and then it’s back to the studio for the oil painting. If nothing exists then archive material, contemporary paintings, models and with the advent of photography for the Victorian yachts prove useful and always a visit to my second home, the National Maritime Museum in London.

Do you have a special work routine (hours, place, etc.)?

I’m usually up by 6 a.m, having a studio on the edge of the Peak District National Park allows me to spend an hour or so each morning up on the hills, which gets the little grey cells pounding away. Drawing and Painting is always best done in daylight, a 30 min catnap allows me to work later on through the day and because of the new web site the interest in my stuff has pressed a lot of traffic through the office so at the moment it’s crazy, 100 hours per week, though I like to keep it at around 60. Projects usually take between 2-5 months to complete.

What mediums (pen and ink, oils, water colors) do you enjoy most?

I was given my first set of nibs at the age of 10 and I’ve used them ever since. Perhaps it’s a tenuous link to the past but I love the black marks and the immediacy of it all, there is something very primitive about the scratching of nibs clawing away at the paper. I produce a sketch full of shorthand working ideas and then mark out and lay the bones of what will then become the painting onto a 6’x 5’ canvas, using great lumps of oil paint and then I dissect the work with a few fine lines, but don’t dwell on the detail as an end in itself. I am largely motivated to satisfy my own curiosity and the most important aspect of the whole process is the mood and the look of the thing.

Tell us about your work on the most recent adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

George Kaufman wrote that ‘you should try everything in life once ….. except incest and folk dancing’………to that I may add filmmaking. This process can be brutal and if you take it seriously it will damn you and crush your very soul, only to have it replayed in glorious re-mastered digital Technicolor time and again-it’s probably the closest thing to DIY lobotomy that man has yet devised.
Having seen my work the producers brought me in to give their movie a darker more brooding feeling and I was given free reign …….a very rare privilege these days especially on a £8m movie. I was very lucky in that I had a wonderful time but it was hard physical work and long hours, and I am as proud of the work on the film sets; the famous apple barrel scene and the captains cabin as anything I’ve done in the past. There was a perverse joy in taking the director and actors from the comfort of bright sunshine into the dismal, dank, dark claustrophobic set, mitigated by the barrels of Stockholm tar left undone to add to the atmosphere…it depressed the life out of them and they were only too happy to return to safety and comfort just 15 meters away! If you have a nimble eye I appear as a merchant adventurer and as a pirate sailing for the Treasure, what joy!
It gives you an odd feeling to have squared the circle.

Richard Woodman is particularly complimentary about your work? How did you hook up for the Sea Warriors?

I first met with Woodman on the fo’c’s’l of the Endeavour, that fine C18th replica sailing ship. We’d signed on as foremast hands to sail in the wake of all our heroes; good sailing weather, much fun and laughter ensued. Unlike the 10,000 souls that had sailed before us full of empty promises we kept in touch for there was a good bond, it’s a bit like meeting that missing piece of the jigsaw ……so it came as no surprise that we should work together, he to write the accompanying text for my pictures and my stuff to add a new dimension to the written word. He is a learned fellow who writes with wisdom and clarity, far too many authors just annotate lists without wit nor hindsight, besides which there’s nobody better to share a tops’l yard at 4 a.m.

Have you worked with other authors?

My stuff has been used in films, TV, magazines and books before; in the mid 80’s there was even a proposed venture with the First Sea Lord /Chief of Naval Staff and Patrick O’Brian, oh, joy! …. but like many a bright star it eventually burnt out due to the internal politics and back biting.
I sat and watched as my peers dished the dirt and scuppered a fine deal........ then, in my mid 20’s, it was like a wooden splinter through the heart. So in 1987 I started my own publishing house.

Which of your limited edition series are still available? Are any new series planned in the near future?

All early editions are sold out and the latest stuff is on the web site. http://www.tonyfernandes.co.uk
There is a new set of 4 lithographs ‘Art of Rigging’ out soon, limited to 300 sets. I’ve been working on them for the past 3 yrs and collectors are already reserving their copies. And there are more prints planned for 2002/3.

What other maritime art projects would you like to tackle?

Being involved in a project usually takes anything from 2-5 months to complete so it is normal to have 2/3 on the go at the same time, at the moment there is a set of 11 paintings to complete, some book illustrations and a new 4 volume set of lithographs together with my U.S commissions which I am just waiting for the O.K. on.
At the moment I’m curtailed in what I’m doing- I was hit by a couple of 12pdr French Cannon balls at Christmas, they were in a shot rack placed on a plinth which collapsed and hit me amidship- the buggers ripped the tendons in my ankle I probably can claim to be the last known victim of the Napoleonic Wars ! - so I guess that the long arm of Napoleon can still reach across the centuries.

Do you spend time on the water for pleasure / any memorable occasions?

It’s rare to get out sailing and just look at the sea and sky, so I always build time into a project for R+R. I’ve done a lot of work out of the studio on the Isle of Man, such a beautiful place with the wicked Irish Sea. There is no rhyme or reason as to where I’ll find myself …... one day sailing a coracle a week later you’ll find yourself on a t’gallant yard someplace or doing sea trials with the Royal Navy.
I was lucky to have experienced the Australian Bicentennial in ’88 sailing under the bridge as those great lumbering beasts came into Sydney harbour or arriving in the U.K port of Whitby, Cpt Cook country aboard the Endeavour with a million people cheering you on, those experiences stay with you forever and still raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

What types of books do you read for enjoyment?

Art, maritime literature (my interest falls off around the late Victorian period), old classics. I generally read widely but I love the age of discovery with those Black ships sailing into pagan lands.

Do you have favorite authors?

Dean Swift, Stevenson, Conrad, Marryat, Twain through to Sid Perelman, there are so many authors that give me a stimulating response to their work.

Is there anything else you would like to say to our readers?

God bless the lot of you and thanks for all the support and good wishes over the past 25 yrs. It’s lovely to have a deep passion for something in life, you can ask no more, especially for the most beautiful of man’s creations.