The RA Sketchbooks – serie

Norman Ackroyd CBE RA has been a familiar face to the boatmen of the British Isles for the past 50 years, often requiring their services to take him out on the water, where he paints the coastal landscape in vivid watercolours.An Irish Notebook is a collection of 40 such sketches created by Ackroyd on the west coast of Ireland. From Malin to Mizen, via the rocky outcrops of Puffin Island and the emerald depths of Roaringwater Bay, Ackroyd records the Irish coast in all its rugged beauty.

One of the country’s most distinguished figurative painters, the centenarian Royal Academician Anthony Eyton OBE (b. 1923) is renowned for the fluidity of his technique and the spontaneity of his mark-making. He spent the winter of 1978–79 in India and made further trips in 1992 and 1994, his parents having lived there many decades before. His Indian sketches in pastel and pen and ink reveal a characteristically fresh vision of the country’s clamour and congestion of people, animals and vehicles, his love of dazzling colour and his ever-observant eye.

Norman Ackroyd CBE RA has spent over four decades recording the coastal landscapes of the British archipelago. All his watercolours and many of his etchings are executed en plein air, mainly from chartered boats chosen for their skippers' local knowledge and expertise in landing on the more remote rocks and islands. These journeys, which can last up to fourteen hours, are the result of extensive reading and research. A Shetland Notebook contains 39 watercolours selected from several journeys to the edges of Shetland in the spring and summer of 2012. From the verdant flora of the southern isles to the rugged northern cliffs of Unst and Esha Ness, the book paints a vivid portrait of one of the most intriguing yet inhospitable corners of the British Isles. Each sketch is accompanied by a brief but engaging commentary by the artist.

These sketchbooks, the work of the acclaimed Scottish artist Barbara Rae CBE RA during her three journeys towards the Northwest Passage in the depths of the Arctic Circle in 2015, 2016 and 2017, record in colourful and assured brush strokes the icebergs, frozen bays and snowdrifts of this often hostile landscape. Polar bears roam and the Northern Lights dance across its pages, accompanied by Rae's handwritten notes in which she records her experiences and her immediate reactions to this harsh, unforgiving environment. Each page of the sketchbooks is meticulously reproduced, and the handsomely bound volume sits comfortably in the hand, making it the perfect gift for anyone interested in painting or exploration.