playing around with surface pattern....

these images are part of a study on tea shops and cafes that I undertook for my BA in Textiles, where hearing threads of conversation made me think of beaded strings, the background layer was acrylic pallet knifed onto paper, the colour mixed to emulate tea, I then set about building various layers with Photoshop, just playing around with some of the exploration work I had undertaken in my sketchbooks

I had sketched, with ink, many the chairs I had found in the tea shops I had visited

wanting to see what blue looked like to balance out the 'tea' colour

gingham had shown its face in several of the tea shops  and so went on to appear  in my images

the original background before adjusting it with Photoshop

there is inspiration every where....

This is a post box situated at the entrance to a Country and Western venue near Warton in Lancashire, I have always loved miniature things and including miniature houses. I love its naivety and find its life worn look very appealing. I also like the colour palette and the metal name plate.

I can see several outcomes arising from this and they may well appear here...

metal bent and rusted by the force of the sea, just waiting for transformation into artwork...

I came across this rusted metal, probably a ships container,  thrown up from the sea while it hurled itself about during the winter storms along the North Cornish Coast. These shots are taken on around Towan Beach at Newquay, near the damaged BlueReef sea life centre.

I do try and understand why something appeals to me but with this image I think it may be because of several things ~
the once pristine, overly shiny, metal man-made box, totally crumpled by the power of nature, the erosion of the paint, the beautiful colour of rust, the way the metal now resembles crumpled textiles, the combination of the blue and rust colouration....the list goes on the more I look at it. I do know it is a terrific source for surface pattern, original colour-ways and would lend itself beautifully to art journal exploration.

.... metalwork from fridges also found its way onto the beach

I particularly like how the shadowy lines from the temporary barriers overlay the  intricate lines  of the metal grid

these permanent railings are slowly becoming coated in rust

these railing are above another Newquay beach but I have included them  again for the rust factor but also because of the  way the missing rail was replaced with bent and riveted strips, also again because to the lines and their interaction with each other