The other side

Last week we spent a few days over on the east coast in Scarborough.  The light and the general feeling of the coastline over there are markedly different from here in the west; sometimes it's a bit too bracing for someone like me who is used to the gentle west coast air, but last week the weather was lovely.

We spent one morning at Saltwick Bay just south of Whitby.  We were dodging the rain showers, but in between the showers the light, the moody skies and the colours of the land and sea were just beautiful.

Black Nab

Behind the nab is the mysterious wreck of the 'Admiral von Tromp'.

Looking a bit like the bones of an ancient creature laid out on the beach.

It is rusting rather beautifully.

We all spent quite a lot of time looking down at the ground; some of us were searching for fossils, but I was fascinated by the patterns that the tide had made with hundreds of little pieces of slate all carefully positioned on end.

I shall definitely be going back to visit again!

A beautiful day for a walk

After the snow, the weather has been cold and so bright it has given me a headache.  Today I remembered to take my sunglasses when we went out and felt much better.  The light was so bright and clear that all the colours seemed saturated; I haven't done anything to the colours of these photos.  Apologies if you're getting bored of pictures of the beach!

The Island

Beautiful weather and a low tide combined made it an ideal day today to walk out to Hilbre Island. Just a few of the photos I took...

Looking across to Wales

The old lifeboat station (and rainbow)

and slipway.

Looking back to the mainland.

So many mussel shells... they reminded me of Ai Weiwei's sunflower seed installation.

From one estuary to another

You probably know how much I love living on the estuary (except when the wind is blowing sand in my face, of course!).

So it was really lovely to drive across country to visit an east coast estuary last weekend. Especially on such a glorious day.

We don't have exciting things like old lighthouses in our estuary, but then we do have islands you can walk out to when the tide is out. So I think we're all square...

A Day Out: Spurn Point

I had a lovely trip at the weekend; I managed to get to Spurn Point to see Alice Fox's Textures of Spurn exhibition.  It was a bit of a trek but so worth it!  Alice has been artist-in-residence on Spurn Point for the last 6 months and has created some beautiful work, do take a look at her blog to see some of the work and also the dates and venues for the exhibition tour, it's well worth a visit if you can.

Alice used the a room in the lighthouse as her studio during the residency, what a fantastically atmospheric studio it must have been.  The lighthouse is not normally open to the public so it was an extra treat to see her work displayed in there, I've never been in a real lighthouse before!  There were a lot of steps...

You can just see the back of one of her pieces here; there are much better pictures on her blog.  I was distracted by the spiral of the stairs and the ceiling.

As you can see the weather was absolutely glorious, so the point didn't quite have the atmosphere that I expected.  But I really shouldn't complain, it made for a lovely day out.  Of course I took loads of photos, here are just a few...

Time off

I've been taking some time off, time off from blogging, time off from making, mulling over the direction I want to take for the final year of my degree (and doing a bit of long overdue decorating!).  Still not sure yet but I have the germ of an idea, a starting point, we shall see where it leads.

We've had gorgeous weather this last week or so.  It looks as though today might have been the last of the really nice days, so I'm glad we took advantage of it and went for a walk along the beach this morning.  It's something I don't do nearly as often as I should.

I love the 'wideness' of the estuary landscape, and the sheer quantity of open sky.  Mountains are beautiful too, but the way they block out the sky makes me feel a little hemmed in.

We met someone on our walk... there is a natterjack toad reserve fenced off on the beach but I've never actually met one before...

...he didn't stay long...

Looking back the way we'd come...

Being so shallow for such a long way out, and being estuary of course rather than 'proper' sea, our beach is not much good for beachcombing.  But today there were piles of tiny pink and white shells collected in the sand ripples, looking a little like sugar sprinkles on a cake.

Now I have some tiles to grout and some decisions to make...

Almost done

Very nearly at the end of my second year at uni now, the final assessment is over, we've had the last lecture, just tidying up now and helping the third years get ready for their degree show.  The year seems to have rushed past extremely quickly, I have learned a lot but this has only highlighted to me how much I still have to learn.  Ah well, learning is good.

Photograph by Russell Smith

I didn't quite get what I wanted (i.e. free standing forms) from this final project; I ended up with one rather distorted free standing form, a set of 3 broken bits, and a rather nice piece which doesn't curve enough to stand by itself but miraculously slots together with the one that does.  So we took what I had down to the beach again, in rather better weather this time.

Photograph by Russell Smith

While I didn't manage to control the form I am pleased with the textures and the effect of mixing the wire with the glass.  And the colours are very me, and very in keeping with our beach, which 'my' colours always seem to be.

Photograph by Russell Smith

Photograph by Russell Smith

Photograph by Russell Smith

You might have noticed that I have credited my photographer; I did take some photographs but his were so much better!  And at least this time he had worked out how to use the flip out screen on the camera so he didn't have to lie on the wet sand...  He will be off to college in the autumn to continue his own artistic journey; you can see some more of his work here.