DollsArtCats

Here's that reference pic again that I was cribbing off of for my dollie backdrop. It's The Battle of Cape Francais (I can't do the accents with this keyboard) 21 October 1757, and was based on this engraving by Francis Swaine: According to Wikipedia: the British ships, led by Commodore Arthur Forrest, were the 60 gun ship Augusta, carrying Forrest's long Commodore's pennant; the 60 gun HMS Dreadnaught, and the 64 gun HMS Edinburgh. So I started off working on the British ship on the right, and right away as I am slotting in cannons; I see that there are too many. There should be something like 15 deck guns on each side (or 12 or 14; depending on whether there are quarterdeck guns; or stern guns; or guns in the captain's pockets) and 15 guns on the lower "gun deck". So I look closer, and I decide that maybe the bottom row of guns on Clevely's painting were actually the oar ports, since they are close to the waterline. So I scrape the hull off of...

I need a background for a doll photoshoot, so I needed something about 2 by 3 feet in size; and I don't have much time--I allowed myself 4 hours today to bang out something between other projects, and this is as far as it got today. Here is what it looked like at around 2 PM: And here is the original reference, "An Action off Haiti, 1757" I think snagged from the Greenwich Naval museum online...they have a ...boatload..of paintings there. Still a lot to paint tomorrow. And now I have to go back to real work!