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. 

Formby Beach

I spent a day on Formby Beach in June and it was full of inspiration. In my sketchbook I did a collection of drawings and paintings based on what I saw. I drew our route onto a map, as well as using watercolours to paint the landscape I saw in front of me.

I also found the ripples in the waves intriguing, especially when getting down on ground level with them: they were mesmerising.

At Formby there is also a red squirrel forest, and although we didn't see any red squirrels, I found a lot of pine cones, and saw a wild rabbit. 

I also found the patterns in the sand shown below really intriguing due to the way that water can create so many different shapes. Some of them were really uniform and geometric, and I always find this intriguing in anything formed by nature.

Poppy Seeds

In my garden over summer, the poppies have been drying out, and leaving behind their pods which are full of poppy seeds.

I drew them in 6 different ways, including continuous line, dots, left handed, and even getting Dean to do one for me.

As well as the seed pod, I also found the seeds intruiging so I decided to trap them in an ironed plastic wallet, and use a pen to represent their distribution.

I liked the result so much that I did some more studies using stitch as well.

My Garden and the lovely British Weather!

Yes that's right... this summer has been gorgeous! At the start of the summer break we had a heat wave so I took advantage of sitting in my garden and taking in the light and sounds of summer.

Responding to Sound and Visuals

I wanted to take the opportunity to experiment with my methods this summer, and step out of my comfort zone of observational drawing. So I sat in my garden and just started drawing. I took in the sounds around my like bird song, and the way the light hit objects like plants, and how it reflected through my glass of water. The colours that I used were inspired by the objects around me and how I felt. It was a really useful exercise and I will definitely be using a similar process again.

After pushing myself I decided to sit in the same spot, looking at the same view, and draw what I saw, rather than what I heard and felt. I drew shapes and textures of what was around me, and I like the result of this exercise too, however I felt that I pushed myself more by drawing what I heard.

Starting the summer brief!

I was excited about getting my summer brief; I couldn't wait to get stuck in, and having four months to find inspiration from where ever I fancied seemed like a fantastic task. I decided to base my project on what shaped my summer and on my two week holiday around Britain. I started this off by making and binding my own sketchbook, which I loved!

As I had a long time to create artwork I decided to take my time and wait until sparks of inspiration came to mind, which worked well for me, as nothing was forced. Now that starting university again is drawing ever closer, I have decided to condense my summer findings into some blog posts to evaluate my work and find out what I want to continue with when I return to university.