ENGAGED IN A
DEPICTION OF WAR
Painter mixes history, art to re-create
a momentous Revolutionary War battle
By Tom Pelton - Baltimore Sun reporter

Painter Patrick O'Brien reaches for a sword hanging on the wall of his studio in Baltimore and unsheathes a silvery blade, its side engraved with his father's name. "Look at this - very cool," he says, admiring the ornate letters that form the name of Charles M. O'Brien Jr., a retired Navy commander.
It's not hard to figure out where Patrick O'Brien, an author and illustrator of 11 children's books, gets his inspiration.
Not far from the weapon sits O'Brien's most ambitious work - a large oil painting of 18th-century British and French warships firing broadsides at each other at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
For the past two months, he's been laboring over his largest painting yet, The Battle of the Chesapeake Bay: Enemy Engaged. It is a 5 1/2 -feet-wide, nearly 4-feet-tall canvas showing 10 sailing ships locked in battle, ripping into each other with volleys of iron and flame.
The perspective is that of a viewer at water level in the middle of the clash, which erupted on Sept. 5, 1781, east of Norfolk, Va. The British man-of-war HMS Alcide, with a golden lion figurehead on its bow, is blasting its cannons at a French warship. Between them, sailors cling to a shattered mast in the choppy waves.
The French were victorious in the battle, keeping the British out of the bay, and that helped France's ally, Gen. George Washington, defeat the British at Yorktown, Va., in the final battle of the Revolutionary War. Because the British couldn't sail into the bay, they couldn't resupply the army of Gen. Charles Cornwallis, which was surrounded by Washington and his French allies.
"It was one of the most important battles in U.S. history, if not world history, because it allowed the Americans to win the war," O'Brien said, examining the partially finished painting during a break on a recent afternoon.
When completed, the work will hang in the Eastern Shore summer home of a retired Washington-area investor who did not want to be identified. He commissioned the work after seeing O'Brien's other paintings on display at Annapolis Marine Art Gallery.
O'Brien has sold more than 50 maritime paintings, many for about $9,000.
To make sure that every line and flag in the painting is accurate, O'Brien spent time at the U.S. Naval AcademyMuseum, where he photographed detailed models crafted by the ships' architects more than two centuries ago. He also pored over 18th-century captains' journals, letters, signal flag guides and maps of the battle.
The copies of these historical documents make his studio, in the Clipper Mill complex in Baltimore's Woodberry neighborhood, look like a museum. In addition to his sketches and paintings, his workplace is decorated with the plastic skeleton of a Neanderthal, a deer skull, 10 dinosaur models (including a 3-foot-tall brachiosaurus), a space-age toy car and an action figure of British naval hero Horatio Nelson.
On the walls are framed covers of his illustrated children's books, including Megatooth, about the megalodon, a giant prehistoric shark; Captain Raptor and the Moon Mystery, about dinosaurs on a space adventure; and The Mutiny on the Bounty, about the famous 18th century mutiny.
A soft-spoken 46-year-old, O'Brien pads around in his lair, among the adventure books and toys, in ripped moccasins and jeans. "I'm doing exactly what I did as a kid," he reflects. "Anything that little boys like - knights, pirates, dinosaurs - I like, too."
He and his wife, Allison, live in Baltimore’s Tuxedo Park neighborhood with their 5-year-old son, Alex. His father, 76, lives in Charlottesville, Va.
Charles O'Brien, a former Navy officer who designed Los Angeles-class submarines and other craft, said he's proud that his son is devoted to such historical accuracy in his maritime paintings. He said art has always been his son's passion. "When he was a little boy, everybody else would be out there playing football, and he'd come inside and draw and paint instead," Charles O'Brien said.
The sword on the wall of his son's studio is something Charles O'Brien wore with his Navy dress uniform, until his retirement in 1976. The most action the blade ever saw was when it recently cut the cake at his 50th wedding anniversary. "There's no blood on it," he said.
Charles O'Brien assisted Patrick's nautical ventures in other ways - unwittingly, in part, when he gave his son his name. For many naval enthusiasts, the name Patrick O'Brien evokes thoughts of the British author who wrote a series of 21 acclaimed historical novels, including Master and Commander, which was made into a Hollywood feature starring Russell Crowe. But that writer, who died in 2000, spelled his name O'Brian.
Not that signing paintings with a well-known name hurts sales among maritime history buffs, especially those who have seen the 2003 movie.
"The name has helped me," O'Brien said. "A lot of people know that name and they say, 'Oh, he painted, too?' If my name was something else, people might forget it. But in this field, nobody can forget the name Patrick O'Brien."