"HMS Skate" Topic

HMS SKATE
By Mal.Wright.

My new painting of HMS Skate is not a large painting, just a small canvas, but I hope it captures this interesting ship as she was. (see link) She was a WW1 'R' class destroyer that served in WW2 in various roles, but mostly as an escort and was the only three funnel RN destroyer class ship to serve into WW2.
link
Skate is the first painting illustrated.

She is shown wearing the early Western Approaches scheme of green and white. Later due to pigment shortages, this was altered to pale blue and white. Note this scheme was very difficult to maintain because of heavy weather conditions, so I have depicted Skate on return to the UK. Once in harbour the WA scheme had to be touched up ready for the next convoy, or it would become ineffective. Her decks are not shown in the painting, but would be mostly brown cortesine, with dark grey steel around the anchor cables, plus areas not normally walked on.

Merchant ships in the background are shown with the earlier MWT standard scheme of black hull and buff upper works. This later gave way to over all grey on most ships.

I hope this may be of some help for those seeking colour schemes. Note that some of the paintings are for sale and commissions are accepted.

Mal.Wright.

Yet another excellent painting Mal – thanks for sharing.

You have also captured the sea and the clouds nicely too.

When did the merchants change to an all over grey for the ships?

fantastic art your doing there Mal , keep up the good work

Great paintings. Like shelldrake says you paint sea very well, although I prefer the greens you use – 'HMS Bluebell. Atlantic dawn' is just fabulous.

Thanks to all.

HMS Bluebell is one of my very favourite paintings!

Merchant ships were not as rigid in their colours, so it would be quite reasonable to expect some in black and buff, all over grey, or black and grey during the period up to the end of 1942. After that they were pretty much standard grey all over, but there were still variantions. A few ships were camouflaged at the start of WW2, mostly at the direction of their owners, and a few instances continued that. By late WW2 they should have been fairly standard with dark grey hull and light grey upperworks, but photographic evidence shows that this was far from standard. There are a large number of variations, some of which no doubt occur because the ships were kept busy and scattered all over the world, so a new instruction had not always caught up with them, or been complied with.
It would seem that some ships had a mix, with black or dark grey hulls, grey or buff superstructure, and buff or pale grey masts. Top masts were nearly always white.
So generally speaking, you can happily paint your ships to look like an interesting variety, without concern about being incorrect.

I agree, they are marvelous paintings! Keep up the good work!

Chris

Nice work, and very evocative.