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Writer's pictureBella Bee

Simplifying the Rocks


The rocks at Hele Bay; they're either going to provide a source of inspiration or they will be driving me to distraction as I try to find how best to describe them.

Hele Bay, Bella Bee, pastel in sketchbook

Having tried a few very rough sketches, it felt right to go ahead and make them more detailed.

Hele Bay rocks, Bella Bee, pastel drawing

However, it seems to lack the feeing of freedom when zooming in to strata like this, so for artistic license the next few images were loose and less bothered with capturing in a geological sense.

Hele Bay rocks, Bella Bee, artist

Hele Bay rocks, Surf lesson

This freed up more informal approach certainly ticks the boxes for me, and yet, give me something thinner to draw with such as a pencil, and things become all twiddly again very quickly.

Looking across the bay from the house on the hill, Hele Bay

The other side of the hill heading west (and over the Iron Age hillfort whch is Hillsborough), there is Ilfracombe harbour and the town beyond. Settling down on this side early when few people were about, it was good to take time to see how things looked on this side of the hill.

Ilfracombe.  The tide has receeded leaving tell-tale lines.

To be honest, sometimes a camera does just as well. The rocks close up look like landscapes themselves.

Now if I tried to draw this, it would be easy to think it was the sea. Amazing.

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