HMS Glorious in the Arctic 1940

Eric Ravilious made this watercolour, HMS Glorious in the Arctic, sometime during the Second World War. Look closely, and you'll see how the whole image is built up from tiny hatched strokes. It’s like he’s knitting the scene together, stitch by stitch. There's something about the way he’s built up the colour here, using these tiny marks that speaks to process, to time, to being present in the making. Notice how the light shimmers on the water; he's used the white of the paper to amplify the brightness as if the whole scene is vibrating. The planes, too, are carefully observed, each one rendered with crisp detail, yet they seem almost dreamlike against the soft, hazy sky. Ravilious reminds me of Edward Bawden, another British artist who found beauty in the everyday. Like Bawden, Ravilious shows us that art isn't just about grand gestures; it's about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, and allowing the process to shape the final image.