Andy's Picture Gallery

All the pictures shown on this page have been created by me, Andy Bone, over the last 55 years. I do not claim to be much of an artist, and produce about one picture every two or three years, so nor am I particularly prolific. Nonetheless on a wet day in May 2013 I photographed such pictures as I could lay my hands on, and uploaded them onto my website.
I have given each a title, and have added a brief story about each one.

I recommend anyone who has pictures tucked away to do the same as me. It has been a very cathartic experience.

HMS Amethyst returns to Devonport in November 1949, following the "Yangtze Incident". She lies abaft of HMS Vanguard, the recently commissioned (and last) British battleship, a berth of honour.

 Below decks, HMS Vigilant, on which I served as a boy sailor. 
An oil, painted in 2005, I took the setting from a grainy black and white photo that appeared in the Daily Telegraph. I made up the foreground from my own memories as a Naval cadet serving in Devonport for one memorable cadet camp in 1958. Drawn in 1958, this depicts one of the flats, (decks) in HMS Vigilant, a training frigate attached to Dartmouth Naval College. This was the ship I served in in 1958, and I still have the cap and name-band. Note the slung hammock, which was mine.
HMS Tiger engages SMS Derfflinger at the Battle of the Dogger Bank, January 1915.

 Second World War Naval action
I painted this quite recently, as a bit of an experiment. I used just five tubes of oil-paint, the three primary colours, plus black and white. All colours are after all made up of these base colours, and I wondered how much contrast one could obtain without using "made-up" paints. Not too bad, really. I have invented the picture, although both Tiger and Derfflinger were in action at this British Naval victory. I was trying to emulate a Turner.

 An invented scene in pen and ink and ink wash.

 Fleet at Anchor

USS Massachusetts

HMS Renown, with a 6-inch cruiser in the foreground

  Drawn sitting on the quayside in Fall River MA, where this fine 16-inch battleship is preserved as a museum ship. Beats HMS Belfast into a cocked hat!

1977 Silver Jubilee Fleet Review, Spithead

Pacific War Landing
Drawn from a Giles 40-ft, skippered by Anthony Harrison, during the Fleet Review. We sailed in and out of all the assembled ships throughout the day, even getting a wave from Prince Charles at one point! Ark Royal is the featured carrier.  Drawn when still a teenager having watched a film on the landings on Iwo Jima. I am sure John Wayne featured in it.

And now for something completely different...buildings

1000 Harbor Road, Southport, Connecticut, USA

Cape Cod shore-side house
Drawn in June 2013, this beautiful house stands on Long Island Sound and belongs to my wife's cousins.

 Belonging to our good friends the Rossleys, their home in Falmouth. Also drawn in June 2013.

 

Lockerley Hall, Hampshire

Lockerley Water
Painted in 1960 with a pallet knife, Lockerley Hall was at that time in the hands of the Dalgety family, who were neighbours of ours.  A late Queen Anne house on the River Dun, which flows into the Test and was full of trout . My parents house in the 1960's.

 

Clare Priory, an active Augustinian order

Nethergate Street, Clare
My favourite picture. I drew it in 1982, as I was interested in all the different angles and the changing perspective which one sees at the back of the Priory. It is located a few hundred yards from where we live, on the River Stour.  Drawn soon after we arrived in Clare. Nethergate Street is one of the finest in Suffolk, (and that means England).

 

Notre Dame

Montclus
Same religion as the Clare Priory, just a bit bigger. Drawn in situ in 1965, sitting on the edge of the Seine with about 30 other artists similarly engaged. Still in France, the hilltop village of Montclus in the Ardeche Valley. Drawn in 1998 when we holiday'd with some friends who own one of the houses in the picture.

Val Verde, Algarve, Portugal

Tressle Brook, Fairford, New England
A charming cottage that we shared with some friends in the 90,s  One of our cousin's home in the USA

...and now country scenery

Doomed Elms

Still in Northamptonshire, looking towards Banbury.
Painted in 1976, these Northamptonshire elms were in their last year of life, as Dutch Elm disease had affected one or two branches. Painted near Byfield, our home before Clare.

  A Roland Hilder-ish view of the English countryside.

A lock on the Stafford Canal

Pidgin Lock, Oxford canal

Drawn in 1974 whilst on a canal holiday.

  A canal holiday when the weather is good is an unbeatable way to see England, drawn in 1975.

A Hampshire meadow

Lockerley Mill

This was my first oil painting using only a pallet knife, in about 1958, painted on our farm.

 My second pallet knife oil painting

and now a collection of what is left...go to the last two pictures for an interesting finale

From the garden...

...and more from the garden

A water colour

A water colour with ink

MTB 710

Cutty Sark

Lost on April 10th 1945, mined off the island of Vis in the Adriatric Sea. Half the crew survived, and this picture is for one of them, Fred Thomas. My father, the CO, Lt Anthony Bone RNVR, DSC, was not amongst them.

I think I have one too many sails on each mast!

Force H in Gibralter

KGV class battleship

A pencil drawing.

A pastel drawing, a very difficult medium, (for me).

Part of our cottage in Byfield.

Orchard Road, Holden, Massachusetts

A water colour painted in 1975

We have spent many happy times in this house.

 

Vidal Van Farm, Keyhaven Marshes, The Solent, by Stephen Bone

Painted in oils using a pallet knife in 1944, this is an original picture we bought for £300 a number of years ago. Stephen Bone was Sir Muirhead's son, and an official Naval War Artist.

 

 A wartime dockside scene, in charcoal by Sir Muirhead Bone.
The cruiser is a "C" class, I believe HMS Coventry, and I suspect she was in the hands of the dockyard "mateys" undergoing a refit.
We bought this picture in the 1980's, and have another by Sir Muirhead, a water colour of Scapa Flow.