top of page

More wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean

I have lived nearly all of my life within walking distance of the sea. I go there nearly everyday with my little dog and we walk for miles. Lately I have been taking a large sketchbook with me (too big for a bag I have to carry it in a plastic holdall). It's A3 so opened up to A2 it is a bit of a brute especially as I prefer to sketch down there when the weather is bad. The sea is much more interesting and the crowds are distracted. The poor little dog isnt so keen on hanging around in the wind and rain but he has a warm coat now and is very patient. Still I try not to hang around too long and this has made me start to really loosen up when it comes to drawing the sea. You cant really 'draw what's there' with too much precision as it is so everchanging and in windy and rainy conditions a certain amount of concentration is sidelined into stopping the book flying away. Its pretty cheapo paper too so it doesnt take much rain for the pages to start distintergrating. I work mostly with very soft pencil (8 or 9B) or black conte and charcoal with chalk or light pastels. Charcoal and pastel have a nice way of smudging when it gets rained on. When I have finished the project i am working on at the moment I will make up some of these sketches into paintings. And also I am going to buy some large sheets of heavy cotton based paper to work onto for finished work directly made on the beach. Here are a selelction of sketches made on the beach this week. The more detailed one I have farted about with a bit more at home just adding a little blue/grey and light yellow to see what it would do. happy days.

20141113_104940.jpg
20141113_104958.jpg
20141116_085555.jpg
20141116_090110.jpg
20141116_085531.jpg

and if you made it this far here is a lino cut I have just finished which is based on the beach too. I'll proof this next week and if it looks good I'll post it up.

20141114_102405.jpg

bottom of page