Developing Doodles

For the past few days I've been doing a daily doodle, inspired by Alyn Carlsons sketchbooks. I therefore decided to create a doodle based on the Norfolk Sunsets and the surrounding grassy plain, using soluble felt tips and watercolour to bring some vibrance to it afterwards.

Patterns

When looking through my holiday photos, I realised that the qualities I liked in lots of my photos were the colour and texture. I therefore decided to enlarge and print out my favourite pictures and cut snippets of textures and colours that caught my eye and arrange them randomly.

I enjoyed this task because the photos no longer looked like an object anymore, they became a pattern which has given me much more to think about when developing my work further.

Patterned Seals.

After seeing the gorgeous patterns on the Seals fur, I tried to represent them abstractly using watercolour, fineliner and pencil.

I created a base in watercolour and added pattern over the top. I felt as though the result illustrated what I loved about the seals fur and I might try to do another similar study, adding more abstract patterns.

I decided to paint a big A2 size seal to experiment with the texture further. I was planning to add patterned detail but I thought it looked complete with the water colour.

I therefore created some studies in my sketchbook with the watercolour patterns, and combined it with my doodling style inspired by Alyn Carlson.

Devon - around and about.

Whilst roaming around in Devon, something always caught my eye, like this fence in a field which was covered in rusted padlocks. I think it might have been inspired by Lovers Bridge in Paris, but if not, it still looked great.

Lovers Bridge - Paris

Whilst walking through Salcombe I found this old patterned tiled floor which surprised me because it resembled other patterned floors I'd seen in Mediterranean countries like Italy.

On our final night in Salcombe there was a firework display in the Bay and because we had a house on a hill we had a perfect view. I love the way my camera captured the movement of each spark from the firework, creating images with character and movement.

Some of my photos also caught the reflection on the water which was also interesting.

Devon - The Nature

For the final week of my holiday I went to Salcombe in Devon. The landscape was very hilly and there was something great to see over every hilltop. Nature was around every corner and I loved the texture and shapes that I found.

These Daisies were found clustered together and they were almost dying which made them look imperfect which I liked.

I loved the texture of these dried out plants and seeds. The second photo has a great line quality to it, which almost makes it look drawn.

I loved these wool wrappings on the wire fences in the countryside. When she sheep had an itchy back they rubbed against the fence creating these interesting features. I like the idea of doing something similar myself but with coloured yarns that represent my holiday or the environment around the sheep (reversing the colours).

Interestingly when I came home from my holiday I went to Tatton Park and found a similar thing, but in black because of the Black sheep they rear there.

Norfolk - The Villages

I loved the atmosphere of the quaint villages in Norfolk. They were scattered along the coast, and packed with small art galleries, Delicatessens, and Restaurants. There was something to look at around every corner.

Every shop and pub displayed lovely artwork, and this drawing particularly took my attention because of how simple yet effective it is. It's a quality that I would like to try and incorporate in my work.

This textile piece was also displayed in the window of a shop, and it is made out of clothing labels. It was a really large piece and the attention to detail caught my eye: I like the collage effect of such an every day item to create something completely different.

Below are some other textile objects that were sold by shops. I liked the fact that they were made locally by local artists, and the scenery was so near by. 

For example, the scenery below was seen right outside the shop. This piece particularly caught my eye because of the texture incorporated by the stitch.

I also loved the amount of pottery in the village of Cley. Below is an image of a shop which had a small pottery studio in a little room to the side of the shop.

I have always loved the type of pottery made by this shop. It is full of character, texture and rustic natural colours.

In the villages around the coast, these big colourful flowers were planted in any place they could find near the small compact buildings. There are lots of colours and textures to investigate so I cant wait to start working with them.

I particularly like how tall and thin the plants are, yet they manage to stay upright by themselves, with the bobbly buds sprawling up their stems.

The cobblestones on most of the walls around the town were used to prevent erosion from the seaside wind and rain on the bricks of buildings. As part of my visial research I might use the shapes created by the cobbles and fill them with drawings and paintings of other patterns and scenes found around the coast.  

 Whilst I was in Norfolk I visited Sandringham flower show, and it was filled with colour and texture inspiration. I particularly liked the hot pokers shown in the picture below due to the gradient of colour, from yellow to orange. The displays themselves were pieces of art, arranging colours, heights and textures to show off the flowers at their best.

Each plant, leaf and flower had something about it that inspired me. In the picture below, the colours and lines in the vibrant leaves were striking, as well as the rubbery leaves (bottom right) and the wispy grasses (top right).

Norfolk - The Beach and Scenery

For the first week of my Holiday I went to Blakeney in Norfolk. There was a lot of inspiration to be found in the small quaint villages and tiny art galleries, and there was also a lot of inspiration at the beach.

One of the first things we did was go on a Boat trip to see the Seals, which were by far my favourite part of the holiday. They are such big powerful animals and seeing them wild made it even more special. 

They all had different colours, textures, scars, and spots, and I previously didn't realise how much they camouflaged with the sand: there are so many patterns to investigate.

Even the smallest features of the beach inspired me, like this rusted wooden fence in the sand.

I had also never been to beaches with such quaint beach huts. They were all very different and traditional, and luckily provided shade for me on such a scorching day.

The sun sets in Norfolk were incredible, none of these pictures below are edited at all, the colours were that vibrant. Because norfolk is so flat, it was great to see the sun catching on the long grasses.

The small amount of clouds in the sky made the sunsets even better, creating pattern and another depth of colour.

On the beaches there were also lots of shells and crabs, as crabbing was a big hobby for the tourists.