This painting looks nothing like the original photograph I used as a reference, a photograph which was taken in Auckland Harbour by one of my students. The reason for this is I wanted to experiment a little with different mediums and with the idea in mind that I wanted the structure of the ship to stand out, so all the passengers, cabins and activity on deck have all been omitted. I was quite fascinated by the pattern that the riggings and ropes made of this structure.

I started with a pencil drawing which took two hours. I then used a wide variety of pens: Staedler, Faber Castell, Papermates, a biro, coloured pens, some with varying nib sizes too. These were all permanent pens, no soluble ones as I was going to add the background after the drawing stage. For the background I used acrylic, which I really used like watercolours making weak washes of the colour and increasing the strength of the pigment as I laid on subsequent glazes, four in all.

When that was completely dry I used acrylic interference colour shimmering green applied using a large brush and large curved brushstrokes.