SANDCUT BEACH NEAR SHIRLEY, BC

Sandcut beach is a popular beach with Victoria and Sooke residents, Sandcut Beach is a 3.5km long cobbled beach which is part of the Jordan River Regional Park. The beach offers spectacular views of the Olympic Peninsula and boasts an impressive waterfall at the south end of it.

There is a fantastic walk through the forest to get t the beach, which takes about 20 minutes. The last ten minutes is steep and down many stairs, which you really feel on your way back up at the end of the day. This is the beach where I gather lots of dried out kelp root balls.

Dried kelp root balls

See drawings of these root balls here:

SUMMER IN MY GARDEN

BOTANICAL BEACH - PORT RENFREW BC

Natural History

Botanical Beach has extensive upland habitat, but is best known for its abundance of intertidal life. A visitor can find hundreds of species of plants and animals. The organisms that live here must be able to handle a wide range of conditions. When the tide is out there are large changes in temperature, predators, food sources and salinity.

Geology
The main tide-pools and sculptured formations are formed out of soft sandstone. Some of the parks tide-pools are formed by wave-tossed boulders grinding out pockets in the sandstone. Purple Sea Urchins further modify these tide-pools by grinding out small pockets. Ridges of shale and quartz jut up through black basalt,and the southern cliffs form some of the most photogenic landscapes found on southern Vancouver Island.

DOUGAN'S LAKE

Dougan Lake, in Cobble Hill, BC. A very small lake that is a couple of miles from where I live. The lake provides an excellent fishery for both cutthroat and rainbow trout which are stocked regularly. March-June and September-October are the most productive fishing months.

Dougan Lake, Cobble Hill

ADAPT, IMAGINE, REVERSE, CONNECT, COMPARE, ELIMINATE, PARODY, INCUBATE.

Sources of inspiration. Burning holes in stained washi paper to add into my mixed-media collage work. TI like to create my own collage paper, distressing them and altering them to have a look and feel from my memory of the beach and all that I see there. There seems to be so many holes in the different species. Barnacles look like holes, the boring sponges create holes in scallop shells, weathered worn seaweed has holes in it… These are some of the words I think about when I am working, thinking like this, allows me to think laterally, get out of the box or groove and push myself to think up new ways of working.

NEW WORK IN THE STUDIO JUNE ,2018

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Working away on my mixed-media collage pieces that are inspired by the intertidal zone. Having a great time.

Details of the pieces above.

JUNE IN THE GARDEN

A day trip to Salt Spring Island on June 18th, 2018 and the start of summer in the garden.

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COUNTRY LANE WALK NEAR DUNCAN, BC

June 5, 2018.

While getting my car serviced in Duncan, I had a beautiful spring walk on one of the country lanes nearby.

MIXED MEDIA AND INTERTIDAL ZONE

My two loves, mixed media and drawing species from the intertidal zone.

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Priming cradle boards in preparation for new mixed-media collage work

Priming cradle boards in preparation for new mixed-media collage work

The cradle boards are primed and stretched with paper all ready to go.

The cradle boards are primed and stretched with paper all ready to go.

BUTCHART GARDENS

Lunch in the dining room at Butchart Gardens and a walk around the gardens April 14th, 2018

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LETTERING

Playing around lettering with a variety of tools and inks.

ZENTANGLE

The Zentangle art form and method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. Zentangle is an easy to learn and relaxing method of creating beautiful images from repetitive patterns. Rick and Maria believe that life is an art form and that Zentangle is a perfect metaphor for deliberate artistry in life. To learn more about the process, go to www.zentangle.com Rick and Maria's Zentangle newsletter

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See more of my zentangles here

MIXED-MEDIA PIECES IN PROGRESS

Working away in the studio on these mixed-media collage pieces - inspired by the intertidal region.

I am inspired by “Intertidal Ecosystems” and in my art practice I explore ideas of growth and deterioration, strength and fragility, beauty and the grotesque. I create mixed-media collages based on these concepts, layered with my imagination and perceptions of this foreshore region. I manipulate materials which yield results that echo the shapes and patterns I discover and observe in this marine environment.