Seaweed addict

As regular readers will know, every summer I spend three weeks in a tent by the sea in Brittany and love every moment of it. We all love it, even the whippet. Every day throughout the year, someone in the family will be thinking about it, talking about it or checking the webcam (apart from the whippet, that is). 

This is the view from the, er, viewpoint, at sunset:

Whenever there's a good sunset, people flock up there and take it in turns to snap it. But there are other places to see the sea and the sunset from the campsite:

and it is but a short walk down through the tents and caravans to the beach path, which leads to this endless stretch of lonely loveliness:

The sky, the expanse, the quiet, and - surprisingly - being able to see the horizon - is what I miss most when I come home. Well, and the salted caramel, artisan bread, swimming in the sea, clear air, seafood, sleeping on the ground, the absence of traffic noise...

(We didn't really notice until we came home that there's only one window in the whole house where you can see a natural horizon, not roofs or fences).

Each year I spend a lot of time doing this

trying to avoid being cut off by the tide 

and doing this with the Girl

I've always collected shells, and find it a very mindful and soothing occupation. I've got jars full of them back here now. 

I've also collected seaweed, and attempted to draw it, print with it and so on, as documented here, here and here. But this year I discovered the ultimate use for all that seaweed. Soap!

I've wanted to make soap for years, and have a book on the shelf already. I've obviously bought the tourist seaweed soaps and bath salts, but the chance to learn to make the stuff myself? With seaweed? Who could resist!

Tout en Français, naturally, so slightly terrifying. 

These bowls were just for showing us the different varieties that can be used, but we used dried seaweed for the soap. A third of us were sent into the kitchen to prepare the dried seaweed while the others prepared some fresh seaweed and greased the moulds. I was feeling hopelessly out of my depth, until our little group realised that nobody knew what we were supposed to be doing or had actually listened carefully to the instructions. Just like workshops at home! Luckily it was just to grind up dried seaweed in a coffee grinder, so we all  had a go.

I didn't really get the gist of what could be done with this little lot of ground up fresh seaweed, other than steeping it in olive oil and using it directly on the skin (or you could use the steeped oil for soap making?). We didn't use it on the workshop, but I brought a little pot of it home with me.

Having prepped the seaweed, then long discussions about which oil to use (we went with half olive oil, half rapeseed oil) and which essential oil to add, we finally got to business. 

Here is Florence doing her caustic soda bit:

and eventually, after we cooled the oil that some numpty had overheated, we mixed the soda with the oil and mixed. And mixed. Here it is reaching "trace" (exciting video!)

When it had traced, we added the ground up seaweeds, some green clay and sweet geranium essential oil. It really looked like soup at this point - the ladle didn't help:

The family had been very noble and eaten their way through a pack of vanilla cream pots to provide moulds for my soap, which I then stashed in a jam jar and kept in the boot of the car until we came home. It's now in the airing cupboard, with about another week to go until I can test it. Can't wait! 

Seaweed 2

There's more!

But first, a couple of seascapes - trying to capture the colours

and now the seaweeds...I think this one could be translated into a fabulous felted scarf, all waves and undulations:

And now the first of the "paddling" sketches

I tried blind contour drawing, where you look at what you are drawing and not your page.  I used a sharp pencil and added the black fineline and the paint when I got back to the tent.

Because the beach is just such a huge expanse of sand, the tide comes in and goes out very quickly - so the seaweed is constantly moving, swirling gently in the currents.  It makes it challenging to draw, but I love these little paintings:

This is what it looks like before I add the paint

Bit faint, nevermind.

Thus emboldened, I tried a crab.  It was alive and I had to mind my toes

and I found it hard to keep track of how many legs it had.

Here is my favourite part of the beach, about 1km from the dunes, where the low tide is at it's furthest point, and where the sea comes round the little island and meets itself, creating fabulous cross-ripples

We also drew in the sand with shells, which was incredible.  Try it!  It is so easy to create fabulous flowing patterns, I'm almost tempted to construct a sandpit at home so I can do some more.  It's either that or looking a twat at Newhaven, and everywhere else round here is shingle!

I forgot the camera so I had to redraw my sand drawing into my sketchbook

I've no idea what this little creature is, but I think it would make a great felt sculpture

I discovered that I can't draw seagulls

and I need to work on my swallows

Finally, here's one from another sketchbook using paper collage.  I added to it today and I'm rather pleased with the result

I am so pleased with all that I did on holiday, and only wish that I'd done more - but injured whippets weren't able to run on the beach in case the "wound" got sandy, so we lost a fair number of days to that.  There's always next year...

When I wasn't falling asleep or sketching, I read two books that really helped with the knotty problem of daring to put pencil to paper.  Actually, one of them is still being read - and the other is going to be re-read very soon.

If I can sort out my Amazon sidebar, I'll put the links up.  The first book is "Art and Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orland, and the second is "The Confident Creative" by Cat Bennett.  Highly recommended!

Seaweed 1

As promised, here's the first installment of my holiday creations and sketches!

First up, a collage of scrap paper and a poplar leaf.  There is a bank of poplars behind our tent pitch, and they get quite noisy when the wind rustles the leaves.  In fact, you can predict the weather that will greet you before sticking your head out of the tent - the amount of rustle indicates the wind strength (it's never not windy in Brittany) and the lighthouse foghorn tells you everything else you need to know....

and then another collage, which has been festering in a clingfilm sandwich for three weeks now and has developed some alarming spots.  Probably a bit of a biohazard now...could it be cured by ironing it?  That would mean finding the iron...There is a piece of ripped paper in the shape of some seaweed in the middle of the collage, but its almost impossible to spot.  I was going to do some more work on it, but I'm not so sure now. 

And then some seaweed.  I was fascinated by the hexagons formed by the overlapping branches.  This is not as "free" a drawing as I would have liked, I was distracted by a leggy French teenager in a bikini who stopped to chat and watch me draw - I hate people watching me draw, and thought I'd found an out-of-the way perch on the rocks, but she actually wandered right over to come and see what I was doing.  Also, I cannot converse that easily in French (see previous post, no. 3 on the list) so I didn't know the gentlest way to suggest that perhaps she didn't watch and just went away, please.

And then some more seaweed, using Gina's technique of sponging over a masked shape - in this case, some paper ripped up to make "seaweed" (the real thing proved to be too slippery and curly).  I sponged the background over the seaweed shape (which then got stuck onto biohazard collage above) and then painted in the pink seaweed into the white space and added some white crayon.

Finally, some shells.  Hard to do as this was a hot day and the paint dries so quickly in the sun.  Well, it's either that or a wet misty day (a day of foghorns) when the paint doesn't dry at all...I wish I knew how to make shells look 3D.

My favourite sketches are my paddling knee deep seaweed sketches in my tiny sketchbook.  I'll scan them tomorrow. 

Now, I'm off for a restorative cup of tea.  Remember no. 7 on the list of resolutions - sleep on a firm surface?  Well my wishes came true last night. 

The Whippet has decided to be a Very Naughty Boy about bedtimes.  He went to Granny's house last week while we went to the wedding, and at Granny's house he's allowed to jump on the sofa and sleep on the bed...ahem.  All was well for a few days, but on Sunday evening when we gave him a bicbic and left him in his crate in the dining room - perfectly normal practice, have been doing it for two years - he kicked up a right old row and cried ALL NIGHT.  And he did it AGAIN on Monday night. 

Perfectly fine all day, happy to sleep in his crate whenever, JUST DON'T LEAVE ME HERE WHILE YOU GO UPSTAIRS TO BED.  Last night, I thought we could just leave him loose in the dining room and he could take himself to bed.  Which lasted about 2 minutes, because he STARTED EATING THE DOOR! 

So in the end, because Mr Gonecycling had to get up v. early for work, it was approaching midnight, and we were worried the neighbours would start to complain, I got a yoga mat, a blanket, a spare duvet and my pillow and slept in the dining room, on the floor.  I had enough of sleeping on a firm surface at about 4.30am and the Whippet was snoring, so I went up to bed.  He woke up and found I'd gone a bit later, snickered for a bit, but then settled himself and slept until 8am.  HOPEFULLY normal service resumed!

Honky seaweed

Inspired by Gina Ferrari I sketched some seaweed with a skewer and black ink, then used Kohinoor dyes over the top.  I'm pretty chuffed.  Thanks Gina!

My sketchbook is a bit stinky from having seaweed pressed between the pages for over a week, but I'm glad I brought it home!

End of the Earth

Hey ho.  Another year, another 500 photos of the same place - but this year with added whippet.