Battle of Britain incident which led to pioneering eye-surgery to benefit over 200 million patients world-wide

Number 2 in a series of pages showing an aviation painting develop as it happens

"One Ran up the Clock"

by John Howard Worsley : Number 2

Having produced a pilot painting on an 18" x 14" canvas, I used its master tracing as the basis for the 4ft x 3ft canvas.
The tracing was cut into segments which would fit onto A3 paper when enlarged by photocopying.
These enlarged copies were then assembled and traced onto an A1 sheet of tracing paper. By fluke, the entire image just fitted nicely. This was then transferred to the 4ft x 3ft canvas which has been installed at the Frontline Aviation museum, at Sandown Airfield, Isle of Wight. In order to cope with such a large canvas, I have had to build a special easel which has its own lighting. The montage below shows these first stages with a Fokker Dri-Dekker replica making a handsome background.

The black brush line work was the last stage of the first day's work. I have had to leave this for a week to attend to other work but it will mean that the paint will be nice and dry for the next stage which will be a complete paint over to achieve the desired tones and colour .

SOME PROBLEMS : October 11th 1999
The first problem was the lighting. The museum is within a hangar which has enormous translucent windows facing more or less south. On a sunny day such as the 5th when I did the first stage, the light bounces off the shiny floor and creates havoc with my eyes. It also does strange things to my cameras. My video copes best but even that has developed a gremlin which only allows it to work if it is turned on its side when switching on. This means that every new shot has to be preceded by a strange ritual which has me prancing back to pose at the easel after mysterious fiddlings with the camera. The 35mm still-camera which I bought many years ago has now decided to give up and is leaking light and buggering up most of the shots. That is why the pictures above have had to be doctored somewhat. I have now bought a new 'cheapy' camera which I hope will improve things, We will see!

PROBLEM SOLVED?
I think I may have got that new camera just in time! By sheer luck a very nice man came into Little Pearl Gallery when I was manning it on Friday. He happened to mention that he was a flyer and as reward for my cheek, has agreed to fly me over Winchester,.... tomorrow!!! . I shall take three cameras and a few rolls of film. This has delayed the next stage of the painting by one day which suits me fine. Let me explain: The next stage involves painting completely over the line image and it is rather like, when redecorating a room, one has first to pull off all the old wall paper,.. which looks a total mess. You know its going to get better but it looks dreadful during this stage and you wonder why you ever started. But one has to have faith in the paints, the texture of the canvas and be convinced that the magic will still work.

Click here to see stage one: the pilot painting and story behind the project

Click here to see the next phase : Flight over Winchester

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