Sea Shore and Snow

I had a lovely walk on the shore and enjoyed seeing the landscape with the white snow covered hills.  It was chilly but such a lovely fresh day and the view was stunning.  I gathered some specimens trapped amongst the chunky mounds of earth that have collapsed from the bankings into the sand. Objects from the sea.
I collected several pieces of seaweed and four mermaid purses. This piece was my favourite because the mermaids purse with its long curly strands had wrapped around the seaweed and knitted itself to the two pieces. I guess the smaller piece has snapped off the larger plant. I knew I wanted to draw this.

It was very cold and someone had cold hands after he fished out some lovely pieces of china from the water,  there are many beautiful treasures from that day, more to be recorded.  I washed this specimen and arranged it on a tray,   you can see how it has shrunk and dried in the heat of the room.

  I sketched it in pencil and then carefully coloured it with black, yellow ochre, sepia and a little white, all very slowly painted with my number 3 aquafine  script liner brush. I spent 4 days painting all the details.

I liked using these colours as they reminded me of my Magpie Moth drawings as they are the same set of colours. I saw the little brown gift bag and I just decided to paint one, this took me 4 hours, yes seems like a long time for one little moth.  Outside it was snowing,  the whole day it just snowed, and as I stayed by the warm fire it was a nice subject to paint  and I loved the finished result.  I find it interesting that the same colours can be used for very different subjects, but then it is nature and many objects  share such colours.

The Magpie Moth sketched out and in the early stages, below finished.

  And here is that beautiful day as we walked along the shore.

Our shore looking at Black Combe.

And the Lake land hills in the distance. This was at midday.
I am always telling you how it is always changing here, the weather and the views.

 Two hours later and the tide came in and the sky changes to clouds and the shore is covered in water.

We have had a very snowy landscape,  Saturday everywhere was covered in snow and after a very stormy wet night it has all disappeared.  I have been spending an hour counting the birds in my garden for the survey but today there are few around, it is cold and windy.  A robin,  song thrush, pair of blackbirds, some house sparrows and three wood pigeons were pretty much it today between 3 and 4 pm.

My spring flowers tell me it will not be long before Spring returns, the smell greets me each morning.
Hope you enjoyed seeing my part of the world and what I have been up to. Thank you for stopping by and your lovely comments. Keep warm. I am off to delve into my other shore treasures.              Millyx