Under A Topaz Sky

Finally got onto two of the sides! From this:

to this:

It does look like tiny fields from above.

Wish I’d recorded the hours its taken so far. But then, probably not a good idea – I’d have a better idea of how many hours there were still left to do!

The next addition to my travelling book was provided by Lynda who when she first took the book said, “Oooh, beach huts!” Not quite what I ended up with!

But another wonderful response which led us to a great conversation about memories of eating crab and visiting the coast. Like Lynda, harvesting food from the sea was an important part of my childhood too. We lived a couple of miles from the sea and my dad and uncle jointly owned an off shore fishing boat, like a large dinghy, which they would often take out for pleasure, long lining for dabs, whiting and mackerel, trawling for sweet brown shrimps and also catching the odd crab. I only went out with them once (and nearly froze to death!) but I learned at a very young age to dress a crab (including getting the meat out of every joint of every one of the ten legs!) and boil and peel brown shrimps. They are gorgeous, but it takes ages to get enough for a good sandwich!

I really like the different media she has used to create the pot and the crab is just cute.

I love crabs – they have such attitude! – and the vintage beads work really well as beach pebbles.

One of the best things has been the excitement of seeing what someone else has done in the book and every time being blown away by how different their response is to my thoughts and ideas.

Next person to work in my sea-themed Travelling Book was Janet. Several members had been a bit apprehensive about the idea of producing work for other people and I’m sure Janet wouldn’t mind me saying that she was one of them. But something they all found as the cycle wore on was that the genuine delight of other people in their work helped put those fears to rest and I was genuinely delighted with this and the contrast with Elaine’s ‘Sea of Buttons’.

Janet’s inspiration was the film ‘Titanic’ which was another aspect of this that I’ve loved: seeing the different places people have turned to for inspiration. Faced with ‘The Sea’ as a theme I would always default to the physical – waves, beaches etc. Thank goodness we’re all wired differently!

I love the simple lines of this.

It tells the story perfectly and the little details, like the shaded blue fabric, the distant school of fish and the portholes on the side of the sunken boat are lovely.

I couldn’t wait to see what the next person was going to create!