This picture was taken on Cley Marshes at the end of September – just luck that I caught the two birds in the shot! A while later I enlarged the picture to A4 size and printed it out on ordinary photocopy paper. I then sectioned this off into five individual pictures, using most, but not all of the original photograph.
Next, using some very good quality tracing paper, I drew the outlines and shapes of the reeds and landscape with a black fine liner pen. I then coloured with inktense pencils, but when I added water the paper buckled. Ironing flattened it again.
I have now enlarged these five individual pieces and intend to play around with all of them and see whether I can generate any ideas for developing them further. At this stage all I can think about is going back to Cley and taking some more photographs! Below is the first quick attempt – the simple landscape right at the top. I have painted the sky and beach and then laid some fabric strips for the foreground. Dyed muslin suggests the reeds with minimal machine stitching to mimic my drawn lines.
This simple landscape pleases me apart from the glaring mustardy-yellow sand! If you have ever walked in this area you would know that the ridge in the background is all heavy going shingle – so a much calmer colour scheme is in order! The muslin works well for reeds as it only needs minimal stitching to suggest a clump blowing in the breeze (see below) but I would like to think about doing the reeds as separate elements so that they could be mounted in front of the landscape.
JOLLIETEXTILES 