Huge vessel's visit captured by college art teacher

Amanda Jayne White decided to capture the Kestrel Seven after spotting the huge red dive support ship berthed in the town.

Since she shared the piece through her blog, her hits have gone from between two to 30 a week up to 3,000, with it viewed by people from Norway, Indonesia and South Africa.

Her artwork led to the owners of the boat, Subsea 7, inviting the teacher and her husband Howard on board for a guided tour.

The vessel is the newest to join the firm’s fleet and was completed earlier this year.

It has travelled from South Korea to the North Sea where it will start work this spring.

Seven Kestrel is spending time in Hartlepool to carry out diver lifeboat trials before heading north to begin work in the oil and gas fields next month.

Amanda, who is a course leader for art and design and higher education at Cleveland College of Art and Design, created the image as part of series of local industrial scenes.

After creating the structures with markers and Japanese calligraphy pens, she scanned it in an added colour and other details digitally.

The 48-year-old said: “I saw this big ship in the dock and I just thought it looked crazy mad, and looking at it against all the houses, it was really interesting.

“I started drawing her, she was nested across from some fantastic historical homes on the Headland’s town wall.

“It was an amazing juxtaposition of old and new, and incredible shapes.

“I was just caught up in making sure the colours worked, and how superficial would I realise that was, once I heard all about her and her special crew.

“I was very pleased with her, but I had nobody to share her with, who would appreciate her, perhaps the owners I thought, and started Googling.”

Amanda, who lives on the Headland, sent the image to Subsea 7, which it then shared through its own intranet site.

She added: “I sent my image to them, not expecting a reply.

“One amazing and responsive company - they replied in minutes, and the next thing I was invited on board Seven Kestrel.
“That’s when my life started to feel small, as offshore manager John McCarthy, and vessel superintendent Rob Mathieson, who is local to Hartlepool, started to explain their job.

“It’s all about the divers.

“They can live in the diving chambers for up to 28 days, on board the vessel, and leaving to go to work under the water to do a six-hour shift.

“Everything on board was about them, their job and their safety.

“I felt like I was on board a space ship going to the moon.”

Howard, 52, who works for a stone merchant, is a keen photographer and took photos of their visit to the ship and after they had a tour, Amanda donated the image to the crew.

Vessel superintendent Rob Mathieson said: “Thank you to Amanda for her painting.

“It’s good for the guys to see someone so enthused about what they consider in many cases their day to day job and we got to appreciate her love of art and the town.

“I think we are painted in a good light.”