Raymond sketching on location at Ayers Rock, Australia in 1991.
In 1980, in the days of no-frills Laker Airways shortly before it went bankrupt, Raymond and his son travelled together for a month exploring America, an artistic experience which Raymond wrote about in the concluding two articles in his series ‘Travelling Hopefully’. That journey marked his 60th birthday. Ten years later to celebrate his 70th birthday he and his son planned another journey which began the following year in 1991. They set off primarily to explore Australia, with a short stop-over in Hong Kong on the way. The return to England was via Fiji, Hawaii and another short stop in Vancouver and the whole journey, by pure chance, took place during a period of exactly 80 days!
This blog post introduces the first two articles in a series of five that were first published in The Artist magazine that describe Raymond’s impressions, experiences and artistic challenges from that trip. It is also a year since the launch of this website and to mark that first milestone a new feature has been added to the site – Showcase – which from time to time will highlight a particular aspect of Raymond’s work. On this occasion it features a new gallery with a selection of the work Raymond produced while again travelling hopefully, this time down under.