CURRENT AFFAIRS
Most of these images are recent current events happening in the world that I see in the newspapers or online. They show life changing circumstances for the people in them. Each image tells a story. The sketches are either colour pencils or paint.
Big red container ship next to a small dingy carrying refugees in the English Channel. 2022
A small pencil drawing of men, women and children at the mercy of the wavesBright colour life vests in a rough, unforgiving grey sea.Some will survive, some will not.The start of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. 24th February, 2022.In roll the Russian tanks.Strategy meeing of top brass and map in Ukraine.The death of his son.Bomb a hospital, kill a mother and unborn child.This was a startling image in the newspaper of a newborn baby in a bombed out hospital in Ukraine. A medic and a military man desperately save a life.A little girl and her dog stay safely indoors and look out on deserted streets.COVID 19 Pandemic. Life changed for everyone. In March 2020, the Government ordered everyone to stay at home. This picture apeared in the newspaper and I sketched a watercolour of it.Devastation, destruction, death, life and home in ruins in Mariupol.COVID 19. A deserted London underground train in January 2021. Only essential workers were allowed to leave their homes and travel to work. Everyone wore a face mask.Patrick Hutchinson carries an injured anti-protester to safety during a BLM demonstration in June 2020. The photographer who took this image was in the right place at the right time. P.H. said he did this act out of ‘Love for your Fellow Man’. There is an interview of P.H. on YouTube.London bombings on the underground and bus. 7.7.2005. These are the locations, taken from a BBC documentary. Sketch in the style of Harry Beck who designed the first tube map.State funeral of Queen Elizabeth 11, Westminster Abbey, 19th September 2022. Eight Grenadier Guards were the pallbearers.King Charles 111, greets new P.M. Rishi Sunak, October 26th, 2022. New jobs for both men.About 2010, Tory politician, O.L. eyes obscured by two mics. Oil pastels.Masterchef finalists.One serving British woman from the Woman’s Protection Units who gave her life in 2018 fighting in the Syrian war. Killed by Turkish armed forces.The big red escape bus, a still from ‘Where Eagles Dare’ starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. 1968. A WW2 film I have watched too many times. Ron Goodwin’s music is haunting.Marching in support of gun control in U.S.A. 2018Remembering September 11th 2001. New York.Talks at the White House with American Bald Eagle. 2020.Alexei Navalny, ( Leader of Russia of the Future) Born June 1976, died 16th February, 2024, at IK-3, a penal colony in the Arctic Circle, Yamalo- Nenets, Kharp, Russia.
Navalny is buried in Borisov cemetary, Moscow.‘The Umbrella Movement’, was a political movement during the Hong Kong protests in 2014.A selfie showing unity in France. 2017.AFGHANISTAN : Taliban fighters keep watch at Kabul Airport on August 31st, 2021.Afghanistan, Kabul is captured by the Taliban on 15th August, 2021.Kabul is to be evacuated by 31st August 2021.Boarding a U.S. Boeing C-17 Globemaster 111, Thousands escaped, thousands were left behind.Pakistan’s Wakhi shepherdesses, the last of their kind. 2024. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from radar on 8th March 2014. It has never been found, but most likely in the Indian Ocean. In the beginning.......there was Concorde.Australian bush fires. Two red trucks survey the damage. 2019-2020.In a sea of photographers, WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange in 2017.Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook faces a grilling, and photographers. 11th April, 2018Cargo ship MV Alta stuck on rocks, County Cork. 2020.