A fleeting moment in time

A fleeting glance captured at a nutmeg factory in Grenada.

A sketch is all I need to remind me of a brief moment in time. It is a note to myself that no one else can read or fathom. I gathered them by the hundred while travelling the Caribbean thirty-five years ago in search of life as it was then lived in the islands. I stress "was" for nothing stays the same. My book Caribbean Sketches is a record of those earlier times.

In recent times the camera shutter has made the lightening sketch for most artists a thing of the past. They have become reluctant to set down the fleeting life of a subject in what might be considered an imperfect form. Laboured finish is the order of the day, whereas the sketch that says all that needs to be said in a few hurried lines. 

Having said that; the prerequisite for a sketch is a subject that inspires rather than a contrived art class exercise.