Week 13

It has been a busy week for me, lots of things achieved.   I had a late start on the seashore page and I still have some finishing I would like to do.  It is a mixture of the objects I found  last week.   The huge crabs claw was washed up on this shore,  we would never see anything that size here but they do exist in the sea.  We  do see hundreds of  the tiny white crabs  mostly  through the summer  in pools of water. You can see  just how tiny it is,   just as I found it clinging onto the huge oak leaf.   An equally tiny and delicate find was this little shrimp case or body,  another creature, yet so fragile in this vast sea.   All  no doubt food for the birds.  I have been meaning to draw the whelks egg case which are often washed up on to the shore,  it seems appropriate as it is springtime,  so like frogspawn only solid and not a jelly.  Whelks are snails, not sure which snail would hatch  from this,  but I found a snail shell that same day to put in the drawing.  The two grey and white feathers lost from a bird probably whilst looking for food on the ground.   And finally the seaweed,  twisted and dry and brittle as it ends its life on the shore completes the page.
It is strange how these objects come together on the page.  I love the grey faded colours and the shape of the oak leaf when I found it on the sand with the little crab like a brooch pinned to it.
They are painted with the acrylic inks,   I need to buy some new ones as they are nearly used up.  The real objects are there to see and a little surprise, as I was  photographing  the sunlight caught a mirror and cast the rainbow across the page.

I walked the shore yesterday to collect for week 14 and shivered with the cold westerly wind and realised why I had the place to myself.  I had been working on this painting  and it was well  after six and getting near sunset.  This week has been cold and windy and although  the tides were not huge they have been quite rough.  A new tideline was visible in places  and it was still wet and slippery.  I walked for over an hour and saw how the new blades of grass are appearing through the sand.  It is a grass covered shore, in the past  the fine sea-washed turf was cut for gardens and cricket pitches or the like.  It always seemed to me more like vandalism to see all the lines of dirt as the land was stripped bare of the green grass,  but it does grows back so quickly and it was someones business selling it.    I noticed the acid yellow lichen on the lime stone  boulders,  used as a sea defence to prevent erosion and flooding,  were glowing in their circular patterns.  Perhaps it was the sun light, or is too starting to grow and glow with the springtime.  I remember I read this lichen  grows in places where the air is oxygen rich,  that suits me to know this as I see it growing here on the rocks on our shores.
My lonely swan disappeared from my  sight, to be found cuddled up under the banking safe from the cruel wind. She had chosen her place protected from the cold as she settled in for the night.  I saw bird foot prints but not another bird.  Just as I left  three loud sea gulls flew over the railway lines and onto the shore.  The sun was fading, as I too hurried home to the warmth, my bag of finds to be revealed next week.
Thank you for the lovely comments, as always it is a pleasure to read every comment and I appreciate your time spent doing so.   Hope you like the  drawings.
 Millyx