Patrick O’Brian is a well known name in nautical fiction. Now another Patrick O’Brien, with a different spelling of his last name and an American, rather than an Englishman pretending to be Irish, is making a name for himself as a marine artist. Here is a short video produced for the National Maritime Historical Society by Rick Lopes of XXLMedia.
[iframe: width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/OUKyLKer9zQ?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
A great little video. I particularly appreciated Mr. O’Brien’s comments on “rivet counters” and how they were just waiting to pick out the errors in his paintings, but he doesn’t mind, especially if the painting isn’t finished, implying he’d fix the errors before signing.
But to me the paintings looked extremely authentic and without obvious goofs; I particularly liked the corvette, driving hard on starboard tack and partly obscured by spray. We’re watching the arrival of a great talent in historic marine art.