Beach Pebble Spheres

I have spent - and continue to spend - days, weeks, and months walking the beach eyes down, searching for any gifts the sea has brought in. My eyes were naturally drawn to driftwood and its lovely organic shapes, sculpted by wind and sea and also the many shells: scallops, mussels, cockles, limpets, oysters, periwinkles and whelks are all common here on the south coast.

I walked and gathered and then came home and spread out my finds to see what they might inspire in terms of craft. I can't help but feel a surge of childish pleasure at unpacking my rucksack and seeing everything laid out. It is the perfect moment when the mind is running across the possibilities of a particular piece of wood or how a shell might be matched to a particular project. And, of course, it is perfect because the idea hasn't yet met the hard truths of reality where things go wrong or the finished design has failed to match the lofty idea.

A recent haul of beach 'treasure'

I have slowly learnt where best to find driftwood and certain shells and even sea glass as these things seem to gather in clusters due, I suppose, to some quirk of the tides and shape of the coastline. But for a long while, walking the beach and beachcombing, I ignored what I saw the most: pebbles. On my stretch of the south coast that I walk regularly - the bit between Brighton Marina to the east and Lancing to the west - the beach is nearly all pebbles except at low tide when stretches of sand appear. 

Then a pin on Pinterest caught my eye: a pebble bowl made by arranging and gluing pebbles using the inside of a bowl to give it the correct structure and symmetry. It is, of course, a very different experience filling a rucksack with stones and cycling it home than driftwood and shells but over the course of a few days, I brought home a large collection of grey stones in as many different sizes and shapes as I could find. 

Using a bowl to make layers of stones

Then I began. It was a slow mindful process that took more than a few days from start to finish. Very soon, I decided I would abandon the idea of a pebble bowl and make a spherical structure instead as a garden ornament. I began to fill in the interior of the bowl until I had filled the ceramic bowl I was using for structure.

Then I let the glue dry and lifted the demi-sphere out. I had made the bottom flat so it would stand but now I had to create the top half of the sphere without the guiding shape of the ceramic bowl. I did think that I could make two demi-spheres and then glue one on top of another but I had already realised the difficulty of creating smooth surfaces with pebbles and I thought that it would make an imperfect join trying to sit one demi-sphere perfectly on top of another. 

The first one of these was quite small and lopsided so I began again. The second was more even but halfway through this one, I came to the conclusion that it would be easier and more attractive to build the stones up in horizontal layers. In particular, it was very hard trying to keep rolling the sphere onto one side to attach stones to the outside as well as being a slow and laborious process.

The third attempt was also the largest. It was easier to work at a larger scale and also quicker to lay the stones flat alongside and on top of each other, something that could be done without always waiting for the glue to dry. With the third attempt the end result was not a sphere but a taller shape that I still found pleasing aesthetically.

Then I had another idea.

When making Christmas ornaments for the tree, I had ordered some coloured glass tiles and I had plenty left. I decided that I would try and incorporate a ring of these around the centre of my pebble structures and so I began again. Gluing these glass tiles was the hardest part as their smoothness didn't adhere as well to the pebbles. 

Just over halfway through the process

Eventually, I had a ring of them however and then continued building the top half of the rough sphere above it. This was harder than I imagined, as I couldn't let the top half of the structure rest on the stones because I thought it would crack them with its weight. The final part of the process was sandpapering the blobs of glue from the pebbles to try and leave a uniform finish.

After about two weeks of fiddling around, mindfully, with the structure, it was complete. They are very heavy, maybe six or seven kilograms, but can be lifted and moved into place. I am now waiting for spring before finding a suitable place for them in the garden, maybe with matching structures in the same flower bed.

I put one of my first efforts at the front of our house on top of a tree stump and watched various passers-by do a double take as they went past. I knew as well that it might get stolen out there or vandalised by schoolkids as we live between a primary and secondary school. It lasted three weeks before someone decided it had to be rolled off the tree stump and damaged but art is temporary so I will move on and make more. Pebbles are, after all, a completely free resource and there is no shortage of them...