One of the jobs that I have been unable to share until now was a set of dragon boat paddles painted for my old club. Everything “stick-propelled” came under the loose title of “rowing”, so in addition to being the rowing coach I also managed a dragon boat team.

The team has been strong over recent years and had another blinding season this year. They managed to win the men’s, women’s, and mixed team trophies at the big championship event.

I was asked to paint two ‘thank you’ gifts for two key team organisers. The draft designs took a little time to work out with the team, but this is what we ended up with. It can be difficult to create something that avoids some cliché images, yet is still relevant.

Both required some reasonably complex stencils and layout work, but once that was done each image built up nicely.

Melissa was very pleased with her paddle and now has it on display at her home.

The multi colour dragon wasn’t easy, but Gianni was also very happy.

It was difficult to keep these jobs secret when the team captain had also commissioned another painted paddle to go up on the wall of the club, but with a few ‘half-truths’ we managed to sneak it through!

Congratulations RHKYC Royal X Team – and of course both Gianni and Melissa!