Peter Codling, a renowned Portsmouth-based artist who is currently finalising his extraordinary piece of art, hand-drawn on a replica sail of HMS Victory.
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00:30I'm Pete Codling, I'm the artist-in-residence at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. I've spent
00:51the last three years creating the largest charcoal drawing probably ever created in
00:56the world. It's a portrait of the city, it's covering 2,000 years worth of local history.
01:03There's nearly 1,000 portraits in here of people past and present who give us an insight
01:08into life in Portsmouth and what's made this wonderful city. It's full of stories, it's
01:14full of unsung heroes as well as all the household names that you would know from the local history
01:19and the knowledge of Portsmouth, but there's also some gems in there waiting to be discovered.
01:24So this is a life-size replica of HMS Victory's spritzel. It's the sail that hangs off the
01:29front of the ship and it's 17 metres by 10 metres. It's a huge piece of canvas and of
01:35course it's been bespoke made, it's a life-size replica. And to get that made alone took six
01:41months of research and getting people to make it, working with a wonderful local sailmaker,
01:48Mike Williams, a retired Admiralty sailmaker whose hands stitched all of the rope for as
01:52authentically as possible we could get to the original HMS Victory sail. And then it's
01:57a case of starting on the biggest blank page you've ever seen. For an artist's nightmare,
02:02how do you start? First marks. But then after three years of drawing, we've ended up with
02:08this and it's a chance for you all to come and find out a bit more about our wonderful
02:13city. I'm a great believer in a wonderful quote from Leonardo da Vinci which says an
02:19artwork is never finished, it's only abandoned. And this deadline has been brought about by
02:25its exhibition in Fratton Park. So I have to stop because the first public exhibition
02:30in Fratton Park is coming up on Saturday the 27th of July and I'm hoping you can all come
02:35down and see this piece. It's hung at the Fratton End, it's telling the story of Portsmouth,
02:40it's celebrating 125 years of Portsmouth's football club history. There's lots of characters
02:45in here that you'll know and lots of new people you've never heard of before but you'll be
02:49amazed how interesting the city is through its history.