Tornado GR4 Painting

Gallery Article by Dave Savage on Feb 16 2012

 

 

Looking for a little bit of help here.

The idea for this painting came about after I was 'friend requested' on facebook by an old school friend. He was at the time on active duty in Italy with XIII Squadron RAF with a flight of Tornado GR4's. These aircraft were part of operation Ellamy (long range flights to Libya)

He had on his facebook page a series of photo's of various aircraft taking part in this op. One particular photo gave me an idea, what if I was to paint a GR4 and then get the aircrew and ground staff involved to sign it? After a quick e-mail to my friend to see if this was possible, an equally quick reply of yes it shouldn't be a problem was received. Once completed and signed the painting would be put up for auction and sold to the highest bidder, the proceeds of which would then be passed on to the Help For Heroes charity.

The result of all this is the painting you can see in the attatched photo's. As you can see it has now been framed very kindly free of charge by my good friend Sue at Dovecote gallery in Bruton Somerset. I also have the full backing of my friends Squadron boss at RAF Marham. I have made a phone call this morning and arranged a meeting with my friend (Lee) for Saturday 4th Feb to hand over the painting so he can take it onto the base at Marham and get all the relevant people to sign it. I have posted a 'start to finish' slide show in the ARC artwork forum.

So all that is needed now is enough people to be made aware of the fact that (I hope) a very collectable, one off painting of a modern RAF aircraft that was part of an important event in recent RAF history, will be coming up for sale.

At this time we have not got a date set for (or how the auction will take place!) but I have written to the Guild of Aviation artists who seem keen to help.

Further info will be posted on ARC as it become available.

Dave Savage

      

Photos and text © by Dave Savage