I spent a lot of time in the Summer of 2012 beach-combing at Port-la-Nouvelle (which is very close to where I live). There was a lot of driftwood on the beach, and I soon realised that it had considerable artistic potential.
On looking closely at the various piles of washed-up wood (and other stuff) I began to see faces of what I have called 'Sea Monsters' which I have taken lots of photos of. A selection of these is in the Sea Monsters section. An exhibition of these photos was held in conjunction with my Danish photography friend, Henrik Bronsted, in Copenhagen in 2013.
I also started collecting and working on interesting pieces of driftwood - well pieces that I could carry as some of them weighed hundreds of kilos. I brought these home and painted them in bright colours in a very simple, quasi-Aboriginal-style, mainly using just dots and lines. The flow, lines and texture of each piece of driftwood generally dictated the way that I approached it.
I have imposed on myself a series of 'rules' for my Beach and Driftwood Art:
The latest evolution in my Beach Art adventures is Stone Art. This involves painting simple, 'ethnic' patterns on stones collected from the beaches of Brittany, France.
Dots play a central role in many of the Aboriginal-inspired works displayed here, some of which have thousands of Dots on them -- perhaps tens of thjousands of Dots, but I've never counted them.
Dotting is a time-consuming, fatiguing (after the first five huindred or so Dots) and repetitive task. 'Repetitive' is important here.
In the summer of 2018, I was diagnosed with a unique form of Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI), namely "Dotter's Elbow" -- I do not know if I made combined medical and artistic history with this diagnosis, but I do know that my elbow was very badly swollen (and painful) and I had to have it operated on, and I spent three days in hospital. The sacrifices I make for my art!
Several months later, my Dotter'sElbow is still painful, and my enthusiasm for Dots has, perhaps not surprisingly, waned.