On March 9th Graham Cooke spoke to
Members on
this subject. During his talk he summarised his careers in the RAF and
in the
Guild of Aviation Artists.
After school in the Isle of Wight Graham
joined the
Royal Air Force in 1962 as an Apprentice Airframe Fitter at RAF Halton.
He was
commissioned in 1979 as an Engineering Officer, subsequently
specialising in
weapons engineering. He was OC Armament Engineering Squadron at RAF
Marham at
the onset of the 1991 Gulf War and deployed to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, as
a member
of the advanced party and remained there until the end of the conflict.
By this time, always interested in art, he had taken up painting in oils and on his return from the Gulf painted a number of pictures, one of which won the 1991 Armed Forces Art Society prize. In December 1998 Graham was detached to Ali Al Salem, Kuwait, during Operation Desert Fox. A picture he painted there was donated to the Royal Air Force Club in London together with another painting of Tornado aircraft flying over RAF Cottesmore.
Twelve of Graham’s paintings have been made into limited edition prints. The sales of prints have raised over £14,000 for RAF charities and eighteen of his original paintings hang in RAF Messes and crew rooms.
Graham joined the Guild of Aviation Artists in 1991 and served as Guild Vice-Chairman before retiring from the RAF after thirty nine years in 2001. He continued his active involvement with the Guild, organised the annual Submission Day for ten years and was promoted to Full Member of which there are only sixty five. Graham is the current Chairman of the Guild. He said he owes his success as a professional painter to the help and mentoring of the late Frank Wootton who was the Founder President of the Guild. Frank was a shy man who worked in a collar and tie and was always willing to help aspiring painters. Graham still has Frank’s book, ‘How to Draw Aircraft’.
It
is not possible to do justice
to Graham’s talk in a
summary. It was extemporized in a most entertaining way in his personal
style
with anecdotes which have to be heard to be fully appreciated. His
story of the
Flight Sergeant demonstrating to a group of Halton apprentices how to
launch a
Thunderflash with a Very pistol that didn’t fire and forgetting, as he tried to throw the
pistol-cum-Thunderflash away, that it was attached to him by a lanyard,
was
worthy of Gerard Hoffnung and had the audience aching with laughter.
Those who
were present will also remember the West Freugh Hotel parrot and the
billet
orderly stories.
On
painting techniques Graham
explained some of the rules of composition that are no longer taught in
art
schools; the rule of thirds which give the four points of interest, and
groupings of threes and fives. Sometimes he uses model aircraft
suspended in
front of a background and illuminated from the appropriate direction to
achieve
a realistic impression and to get the complex shadows and highlights
correct.
He also passed on a tip he had picked up from ‘U Tube’ for achieving
waves on water realistically ‘frozen’.
The professional
artist has, he said, to use
time-saving methods as, unlike the amateur painter, he does not have
the luxury
of endless time. Throughout Graham illustrated his talk with paintings,
all
oils on canvas, that he had brought along. He said that he is usually
working
on half a dozen paintings at a time so that as one dries he can move on
to work
on another.
The
vote of thanks for this very
special talk was given by David Hassard.