Rock Pool Bars

Rock Pool Bars, originally uploaded by e s c h e r.

Half moon bay at Heysham was the venue for today. The weather was supposed to be changing with the winds coming from the North so I expected to get frozen hands and fingers. Fortunately it was warm with broken sunshine and turned out to be a nice day.

As seems to be the way I go about things these days I went along with no idea of what I was going to make. Firstly I wandered around the cliffs and beach looking for a nice natural feature to work with.

Eventually I stumbled across this attractive round rock pool. These are characteristic of what happens when a round stone becomes trapped and the water rattles it around gradually creating a larger and larger round hole.

Another thing that is usual is I don't really know how it will turn out until I it is nearly finished, always adapting the ideas that come into my head and adjusting what I do by what the materials allow me to do.

First I prepared the seaweed floats on the left. Despite having a large beach to comb I could only find a few large ones, this meant that I couldn't fill the whole pool as was my first idea. Whilst searching for those I found the light coloured seaweed in the middle, I liked the contrast. Lastly I had to decide what would go on the right. Coloured pebbles? Different seaweed? Hmm I wasn't sure.

I had collected a few red wind-blown leaves from the front of my house just before we set off. I didn't know where they had come from but the deep scarlet colour was attractive. It was just the right material for the last bar. All that was left to do was to stop any dogs from jumping in it (one nearly did), grab my camera and finish up.

What did I learn today? Well amongst many things I did learn (well reminded really as I did know already) that rotting seaweed really stinks!