Sand Vents

Sand-vents, originally uploaded by escher1.

Julia's sand balls had given me the idea to work with the sand. Here there was a nice dryish crust with wet sand underneath that was easy to work. I started on the first hole (nearest in the picture) thinking that I would create a ball with a hole in it. As I worked it the doughnut shape began to form and I liked it. I spent ages smoothing it out and then thought I had to make three of them. The middle one was much easier to make and came together really quickly but the third one proved more problematic. It looked lumpy and a different shape to the rest and I kept returning to it to improve it's shape. I am really happy with the picture though, I think it has an other-worldy feel and gives me lots of ideas for more sand sculptures.

Sand-vents-2, originally uploaded by escher1.

Sand Wheel

Sand-wheel, originally uploaded by JRT Pickle.

At Humphrey Head, after making my sand balls., I was just in the mood for doodling and ended up making this sand wheel, no pre plan, just did what I wanted as I went along. The darker sand was actually very black when I first started using it, but as it dried out it faded considerably. I used a tent peg to make the indentation of the spikes.

Lined Spiral

LIned-spiral, originally uploaded by escher1.

Around Morecambe bay there are lots of rocks with bands of quartz through them and I had in mind for a while that I wanted to create a spiral with a line continuing around the spiral made of the quartz bands running through each rock. I collected the rocks on the shore at Lytham and on the beach at Morecambe and the rocks had been in a plastic bag clogging up the house for a couple of weeks before I finally had enough to complete the spiral. I put them next to the cliffs at Humphrey Head after clearing and flattening the surface of the sand and left them there.

Pebble Fade

Pebble-fade, originally uploaded by escher1.

There were some left over pebbles from the black hole sculpture which were different shades to the white/gray/balck that I needed, so I quickly made this arrangement with a fade from sandy yellow, through brown to light purple. These stones came from Lytham.

Black hole

Black-hole, originally uploaded by escher1.

A tribute to Andy Goldsworthy's "pebbles around a black hole" sculpture that he made in Japan (which was one of the first pictures of his that I saw when I googled for som eof his work) that I laid down at Humphrey Head. I first dug a hole and placed the white stones around it (a couple fell in so I had to rebuild the edges a couple of times). Then gradually I blended out the white to grey then darker pebble. I spend ages fiddling around the edge making it straight and then smoothed the sand around it. it ended up being about 3 or 4 foot across and I struggled to get a picture of it from above. Turned out quite well but upon reviewing the Goldsworthy orginal I shouldhave made the black hole bigger! Means I will have to do thi sone again! The white pebbles were from the beach at Silverdale and the rest collected over several days from the beach at Lytham.

Dry Stripe

Dry-stripe, originally uploaded by escher1.

After I had removed the spiral stones to show the dry patch underneath I also did it with the faded and blended pebbles arrangement and it left this dry stripe on top of this rock. Not sure if the effect is pleasing or not but it does give me lots of ideas for other wet/dry pictures.

Rain Shadow

Rain-shadow, originally uploaded by escher1.

We went back a couple of days later to the little beach next to Loch Lomond where I made this spiral to see if it was still there. I was surprised and happy to find that this and the other sculptures were still there. The weather had changed from the lovely sunshine when we were first there it was now very windy and lightly drizzling. So I decided to remove the stones (I wanted to take them home) and see the dry patches underneath. This has given us lots of ideas on how to do this again.

Tree Arches

Tree Arches, originally uploaded by escher1.

Arches are insanely difficult to build but down by the Loch there were lots of nice flat rocks. Some of these were liberated from the now fallen down slate/quartz stack. This was my first attempt at a tree arch and ended up being the best one. Anything wider than this proved to be impossible for me.

Arch-2, originally uploaded by escher1.

Arch, originally uploaded by escher1.

Wedged, originally uploaded by escher1.

Tree-stack-2, originally uploaded by escher1.

Quartz Slate Stack

Quartz Slate Stack, originally uploaded by escher1.

After building the gritstone version at Clougha and lime stone stack near Silverdale, in this style I wanted to build another one with cleaner lines and slabs decreasing in size. This time I collected up all that I needed before I started so I could arrange the stones how I wanted them. The day before I had noticed how the stones turned black when wet when Julia had the idea of dipping her rocks in the water. I liked the idea a lot so for this one I wanted to dip each alternate layer in the water which would, with the quart pebbles in between, give a black and white affect. I found though that the wind was drying out the slabs well before I was near finishing so I gave up that idea. This picture is of the second attempt as the first fell down before I had a chance to get a decent photo, this one fell down shortly after I got this picture.

Driftwood Zig Zag

Driftwood-zig-zag, originally uploaded by escher1.

After I had made the stick pyramid there were lots of left over sticks that we had collected. We went back down to the Loch shore a couple of days later and it was now very windy. We went to look at the stick pyramid and quite a bit of it had blown away. These sticks were very light, a bit like balsa wood and it was hard to keep them staying up in the tree. They completely collapsed more than once until I managed to get them to stay in place despite the wind. The sticks went much higher than this but the picture was spoilt by bits of tree getting into the frame. Bits of it had blown away by the next day.

Faded and Blended Pebbles

Faded and Blended Pebbles, originally uploaded by escher1.

As I was searching for pebbles to make the spiral (you can see it in the background) I noticed the different coloured pebbles on the beach. First of all I wanted to make cone piles of three different colours but as I searched more and more colours appeared. Julia joined in the collecting and we ended up with black fading into red/black mottled granite and then into red granite pebbles, brown and orange sandstone and ironstone into orange quartz then white finally into purple slate and grey slate. Making sculptures like these really makes you look much more closely at your environment. There is more to the process thnan just the creation as you really become deeply immersed in your surroundings.

Spiral

Spiral, originally uploaded by escher1.

This was another sculpture that I have wanted to do for a while. It is based on the sculpture on the front of Andy Goldsworthy's self titled book. Most of these were slate and split quite easily when tapped with a big stone, but many I hit too hard and they disintegrated so I collected many more stones than ended up in the final result. I was very pleased with the result. It gave me a real sense of the time, effort and artistic flair that Goldsworthy so obviously has. When I looked at his original again afterwards I could understand more the quality of his work (compared to mine - his crack between the stones looks continuous - quite stunning) and the hard work that it takes. Many of his works still look impossible to me though!

Stick Pyramid

Pyramid2, originally uploaded by escher1.

After we arrived at the campsite next to Loch Lomond we went for a stroll down by the loch. The water had obviously been a lot higher and there was a high tide mark with lots of interesting driftwood, water worn rocks, glass bottle necks and bits of bark. I had had in mind for a while that I wanted to build a stick pyramid and the bleached soft wood sticks we found along the shore were perfect. We collected up as many as we could find and sorted them into different lengths. Then we built a square platform of flat rocks upon which we would place the stick stack. So then the sticks were placed in parallel pairs with the next set at 90 degrees on top of the previous layer gradually decreasing in size. The process wasn't as easy as it first appeared, the sticks kept rolling and wouldn't stay where I put them and this got worse as it got higher and the sticks smaller. Finally at the top the sticks were very small and fiddly and wouldn't stay in the right place until I dropped them down the middle of the pile! I then decided to extend the platform and clear out the stones around it as getting out those little sticks was just too damn fiddly. Once the platform was complete I weedled out the lost sticks from under the structure and finally finished it.

Pyramid

Pyramid, originally uploaded by escher1.

Square clock

Square-clock, originally uploaded by escher1.

Originally I wanted to build a series of concentric circles of interlocking stones but I hadn't found a place to do it yet. I built this when We went for a walk in Grizedale Forest to look at the sculptures in the forest. We didn't chance upon any interesting land art only more permanent sculptures and installations. Just off a main mountain bike track next to a waterfall we found a nice spot and I built this square sculpture, it is only about 8 inches across and took ages to build. The ground underneath was very gravvely with bigger rocks too and was very difficult to dig out and make flat, my hands became very cold and then it started to rain. Julia was looking cold and miserable and wanted to leave, I noticed there were brown and green branches nearby so I cut some up to make the circular pattern. The resultant picture I think is very disappointing, it was so dark that I had to use the flash and it bounced off the wet rock, creating a lot of glare. This was my first piece that I spent a lot of time on and I realised to get good results considerable effort needs to be made!

Arch Attempt

Arch Attempt, originally uploaded by escher1.

I had high ambitions to build an arch and discovered how difficult it is! I tried to build a platform underneath but did it in quite a sloppy manner and then also built the arch in a sloppy manner too. Even with the platform underneath it collapsed once! Still I liked the design a little and decided to leave it with the platform underneath and next time I will have to plan out an arch much more carefully, making the platform underneath stable and flat and the arch well designed so that when the support is pulled out it will hopefully remain standing! Lots more practice required I think!

Limestone Stack

IMG_5597, originally uploaded by escher1.

This was the first time I built this style of stack with pebbles in between flat slabs. There were some really nice white pebbles on this beach near Silverdale and lots of - sort of - flat slabs. The placing of each slab wasn't easy as there were not really flat at all. I placed each layer then went to look for another slab to put on top so it was a bit by accident that it has taken on the shape that it has but the effect of bulging in the middle - although accidental - seems to work. There were a few people who walked past us as we worked and gave us some quizzical looks. This stack didn't stay up for long either.

Jammy Dodger

Jammy-dodger, originally uploaded by escher1.

One of my first ideas and the first time I have put a reasonabel amount of effort in. I didn't plick a particularly good place to do it as it was very dark under that tree and necessitated use of the flash. The idea was there, I think, but the execution was not up to scratch. This early attempt showed me that to achieve the effect that I want then I must put considerabel effort into every detail and not rest until it is right.

Brick Stack

IMG_5457, originally uploaded by escher1.

We visited Crosby Beach near to Liverpool on a bright sunny day to see Antony Gormley's installation called "Another Place" - a scattering of life size iron men wistfully gazing out to sea. Crosby Beach is a stark windswept place with a wind farm off shore and Liverpool docks close by making for a dramatic - alomost lonely setting - for the figures. As we strolled back to the car we came across a large bank of bricks, I guess from a demolished building - or perhaps they had been dumped there as a shore break to protect from erosion by the waves. Anyway the bricks were rounded and clourful and eroded into interesting shapes and were just begging to be made into a stack.

Cone Circle

Circle, originally uploaded by escher1.

We had collected different cones and seeds around where we live and needed to make something from them. When we were walking near Birk Bank we found a really interesting wood with gritstone slabs and trees and made a beeline for it. Eventually I decided to start on this design not really knowing what I was going to do. It took ages to stop the cones rolling (the slab was sloping) and I had to use a lot of wet earth underneath to hold everything in place. It took a lot of work and was quite fiddly and had a lot of repeating patterns yet despite the effort I put in it just doesn't look right. It looks like a christmas wreath! It just doesn't have that "cool" land art quality but as a first attempt at something more convoluted it showed me that it is worth spending more time formulating ideas and preparing what I want to do.