Saturday 27 February 2010

Do men go for beach huts?

I read somewhere recently that paintings of beach huts always sell. But that isn't why today's collage was a row a of beach huts - honest! I've had in mind to do some beach huts for ages! And the sailing boats got me in the mood for more coastal, holiday scenes!
I wonder what it is that fascinates us about beach huts. I've photographed them at Cromer and at Broadstairs and I made a pastel painting of the beach huts at Wells-next-the-Sea some years ago. Unfortunately I didn't scan it before it was framed for my daughter.

A dear friend of mine, a Welsh teacher living in Worcester, but pining for the Welsh coast, who sadly died a couple of years ago, used to frequently remind me that if we were down on our luck and times got too hard, we could always sell our houses and go and live in adjacent beach huts, somewhere down on the Gower! That was until we discovered the price of a beach hut.....!

I went about this collage in a slightly different way from usual. I think I've become more at home with the medium and that gave me the confidence to just do a very rough sketch and leave out the tracing paper stage altogether. Apart from making one paper template of the basic beach hut shape, to ensure that they all came out roughly the same size, I just 'built' them 'organically', as it were, making it all up as I went along. It still took a long time, by my standards, but it was a lot more fun!

I was disappointed that Thursday's sailing boats looked so 'bland' on the screen - the various shades of white in the sails didn't show up at all - although, thankfully they printed out much better. But this time the 'graininess' of the different papers seems to have shown up quite well. I don't understand it - same scanner, same process, same screen. Sometimes the technology seems to have a mind of its own  The only disappointment today is that the seaweed hanging from the green hut looks black, whereas it is in fact a lovely rich reddish 'bladderwrack brown'!

I left the lower third of the design fairly empty so that there is plenty of room for a caption -
I'm not entirely sure whether it's another design for my 'Cards for Men' category - but at least it isn't flowers!

I particularly like it on the mug I made on Zazzle.

2 comments:

Michele said...

It may have been me who said Beech Huts sell, I think it is because we are an island nation, we love anything coastal. The card is great, whether it is for men I hardly know. They are so difficult to buy for... if only they liked shoes!

Judy Adamson said...

Actually, Michele, a friend of mine knows a man who does - like shoes, that is!