Beachcombing

Walking along the beach, collecting things is one of my pleasures. Even picking up rubbish on a #2minutebeachclean is enjoyable for me! Here is my collection from the last beachcombing walk at Pagham beach - the inspiration too behind my latest illustration.

Beaches

While walking Finn I cannot stop beach cleaning. Martin Dorey - the founder of 2minutebeachclean was on BBC2's Springwatch last week - he's doing an amazing job. I've discovered that each beach I clean has a different type of rubbish: Wittering was littered with lots of dog poo in bags - I can only think that after bagging it the dog's owners didn't want to carry it around with them so discarded it - even though there are many bins around. Pagham has lots of matted fabric caught up in the dried seaweed. I didn't realise what this was until I'd been clearing it for a few weeks - WET WIPES - disgusting. Apparently they are becoming a real problem as people are using them more and more. Then there's Bognor - clogged up with beer cans and takeaway rubbish - just left behind regardless of all the bins along the promenade.

I also cannot stop photographing boat bottoms! I love the layers of coloured peeling paint and the textures. I think they look like abstract paintings.

2 minute beach clean

A couple of weeks ago I saw pictures on instagram of #2minutebeachclean and Martin Dorey's brilliant idea of doing a 2 minute clean every time you visit a beach and now I've become mildly obsessed. On our last 3 visits to Pagham harbour, Chichester harbour and Pagham beach, Gra, Finn and I have collected up a tiny bit of the enormous amount of rubbish we saw. It is amazing how much is out there, we've found some interesting things too as you can see below. So does this inspire you to do one?

Rust

Oh the beauty of this rust - I'm so easily pleased these days!

Diagonals

 Day 6 of August Break and the theme is diagonals. I was up early today to take MJR to the beach as a special treat - he is feeling much better - thank goodness. It's fascinating under the pier looking at all the coloured ropes tangled up on the struts.

king of the castle

It will be a few days before he'll forgive me for this!

Round

Different views of this round stone found on Dungeness beach in the Summer. Artistic license for the colouring of course.
© 2011 nicky linzey
For Illustration Friday

Dungeness

I've been wanting to go to Dungeness for ages and we eventually made it last week. It didn't dissapoint me - it was as strange and eerie as I'd expected but fascinating too.

Absent

I've been absent without leave for a week in one of my favourite places.

Faces

Sky blue

My favourite colour has to be sky blue. What's yours?

Midsummer madness

It was a lovely day yesterday so we made a rash decision to shut down our computers and head to the beach with a picnic. It always seems more enjoyable doing something like this when you really should be working! I won't tell if you don't.

Lagoon

It's elderflower cordial time again as the blossom is just coming out, so the other evening we walked to the lagoon to pick some. It was a grey & murky evening but with so much rain the smell was wonderful and green like last time, although it is 3 weeks later this year. The lagoon is a funny place, quite wild and bleak. It used to be full of old railway carriages converted into homes which I loved - unfortunately most of these have been knocked down and replaced with pseudo Spanish bungalows. It is behind these that the lagoon & wilderness exists.

Too much fun

We've just spent a week in Cornwall and had a great time - hot sun, blue skies, sparkling sea, too many magners, coastal paths, exhausted jack russell, frozen gooseberry yoghurt, mooching in mooch, kazi bread, fresh mackerel, wild flowers, butterflies, walking, photographing, drawing, carrot cake, danish pastries, fish pie, a good book, chilled rosé - I want to go back!

At his best

My Jack Russell beaching it on Friday night.

Excitement

We've just got a new camera after spending months trying to decide what we wanted. Should it be an SLR, a tiny digital we can easily take everywhere or what? In the end a friend recommended a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 - it had really good reviews so we took the plunge. I'm not a person who will spend ages working out settings, I'll have it on auto almost all of the time and the 18x zoom appealed to me.

We were like children when it arrived - excited! Gray always reads the manual from cover to cover but I just get on with it and it's very much trial & error. Here's one of my first pics - the pier with coloured rope caught up on the struts. This sight always fascinates me as it's forever changing and yet has taken years to build up all the colours and textures.

Primitive

The days I've spent in the wind and rain while Gray has searched for fossils. Somerset beaches, Devon beaches, Dorset beaches - for some reason always on days of extreme weather. I'm not as obsessed about finding them as he is but they are beautiful to see & pretty amazing when you think how they are formed and how long they've been hidden.

I drew these ones ages ago and use the drawing for the header on this blog & my website because I love the patterns. They also come under the heading of Primitive for IF, so I've re-coloured them to suit the day here which although Spring - is still pretty murky!

Fail

How quickly Friday comes around with a new subject from Illustration Friday! - this week it's 'fail'. I'm really busy at the moment with an exciting project on the go, so I've used an illustration from the past. I love it in South Devon especially sitting on the beach at East Portlemouth looking over towards Salcombe - so my submission this week is of the view across the estuary because it never FAILS to make me happy!

Rubbish

The subject this week on IF is 'Pet Peeves' - I don't have many and thought I would give it a miss, however while walking on the beach I noticed so much rubbish around. I collected a few things that caught my eye and I must admit I was selective about this. My collection was based around colour, shape and pattern - there is beauty in rubbish. So here is my illustration based on my pet peeve - rubbish on the beach.

© 2008 Nicky Linzey

Nothing changes

I spent some of the weekend clearing out our junk room/music room to make more space for Gray's expanding collection of guitars, guitar stands, musical hardware, software, microphones with stands, recording machines etc. It had got to the point where he could hardly get in the room, so I thought I would go through some of my stuff. I find this very difficult - I can spend a whole day going through things, looking at old books, reminiscing about my childhood, unpacking material and old clothes I've kept and then packing everything back up again! I was shocked when I came across this notebook I hadn't seen for many years. I must have been about 8 years old and I'd bought it to record my first ever family holiday abroad, to France. What surprised me was - nothing changes does it? I'm still doing the same thing all these years later!