Seadrift: Beach Art

It's no accident that a lot of driftwood art seems to represent life by or on the sea: boats, fish, whales, dolphins, mermaids and so on. I am no exception to this. The first thing I ever made with driftwood was a fish and then I made another one. Since then I have made giant squid, more fish, a sea turtle, a miniature shark (see last post) and some boho surf shacks. These surf shacks are pleasing to make for being relatively simple and quick. A lot of what I make involves several stages over many days as I build up to the final form and mostly this time is waiting for glue to dry. I like to use Gorilla Glue because, although it takes a few hours to dry completely, it is very strong and things are stuck fast. Reverse side The surf shacks involve several similar length pieces of driftwood, painted or not, then glued together and onto a piece of wood that will have the fixing attached (I like to use brass hooks onto a length of pallet wood which is free and easy to collect almost eve...

When I walk the beach, eyes on the ground, I am waiting for something to catch my eye. Here on the south coast, the beaches are shingle, made of stones and only at mid to low tide does the sea recede enough to reveal sand. The stones range in colour from dark grey to brown to white. In the last twelve months, I have begun to notice that there is a wider diversity of material - living and dead, man-made and natural - than I had previously realised despite living here for the last seven years. I know now that the black plastic-y pods that appear to have four 'arms' and commonly known as mermaid's purses are the seed sacs of skates,. The pale spherical ball, light as air, and made of joined cells I now know are the seed sacs of the common whelk, a sea snail whose shell I have picked up and brought home many times. I have learnt the names of different seaweeds, noticing which ones appear in higher quantities at different times of year and I have begun to learn the names of diff...