Paint Like Hinkson

 Donald "Jackie" Hinkson is one of Trinidad's artistic gems. Born in Corbeaux Town, Port-of-Spain in 1942 he grew up in what we would now call 'the old time days'. Can you really say that phrase without calling to mind the beautiful song "Bring Back the Ole Time Days" if you are above a certain age? I think not soooo I know we just started but... let's have a brief intermission and enjoy some good music lol.  

Where were we... ah yes Hinkson grew up in a colonial house with a gabled roof and jalousies (my campers got to see pictures of these old houses which are a not-so-secret obsession of mine). His family home on Richmond Street POS became a liming spot for the neighborhood friends... boys who lived in barrack yards and other modest homes in the area, and this was quite extraordinary considering this was a time in Trinidad's history when the upper and middle income brackets had strict unwritten rules of association according to class, colour and religion. As a boy he also drove the length and breadth of the country with his father who was a travelling officer for the Colonial Government and this exposure to the landscapes of the city as well as rural areas influenced him greatly. 

He won a scholarship to go to QRC where he made friends with like-minded individuals. One of these school-mates, Peter Minshall, would later turn into this country's finest mas man. My campers all found that this was seriously cool... This friendship with Minshall is credited with cementing his resolve to pursue art for a living. I guess you can say that he found the bravado he needed to take the road less traveled by meeting someone else thinking of going the same way! 

Of course unlike many other artists he was fortunate enough to follow his passion for art by furthering his education in Paris and then launching right into creating art in many many different forms, from drawing, to watercolours, to acrylics and oils to sculpting. 

The piece we are recreating today is called Jetty at Ashton and it was originally done in oils. I have simplified the piece by including only one boat and drawing attention to the shapes so it is easier to draw the boat and the back of the man and also calling attention to the different tints the artist used to depict space.