Painting On Board

Suffering from artist’s block, SARAH MURRAY joined a world cruise in the hopes of finding inspiration for new artworks

Arriving in an unfamiliar city by sea was a new experience for me, so steaming into Cape Town at dawn was something I will never forget: the monumental Table Mountain with the city curled beneath it, fringed by two oceans – the Indian and the Atlantic. I was on board the Viking Sun in the hopes of breaking my painter’s block and coming home with sketches, photos and ideas.

I began my stretch of its world cruise in Durban, South Africa. Huge, bustling and colourful, this city’s Zulu culture mixes with Asian influences so the golden mounds of the spice market jostled with the coloured silks of the sari merchants’ stalls.

That evening, I found the ocean light flooding in through the ship’s huge windows great to work with, so I set about drawing from my photos of the market. The ship has an artist-inresidence on hand to help creative passengers and she also holds workshops so you can learn anything from knitting to photography.