Sketchbook Session: Nanjizal Beach

Another sketchbook practice session, inspired by our hike from Porthgwara Beach to Nanjizel Beach in Cornwall. I’m experimenting with a lot of different mediums and also surfaces. For a long time now, I’ve been interested in capturing the delight of sensory experiences in nature… like the fresh sea breeze coming over the cliffs, the sun on my shoulders, the tingle of the cold, salty sea, and the delight of the colours, textures, and shapes in natural landscapes.

I love noticing those sensory experiences when I’m out in nature. That is what delights me, moves me, invigorates me. That sensory delight and what it does to my internal landscape is what I love to capture, savor, and express through my art.

These days I’m finding that there’s an additional sensory element to my art-making process, alongside sensing the external and internal landscapes, that I’ve become obsessed with… the sensory experience of my art-making materials.

I’m interested in how the sensory experience of each particular art-making material relates to the sensory experience of the natural landscape that inspired the artwork, and also how the sensory experience of each art-making material changes my internal landscapes as I work.

In this sketchbook session I used acrylic inks, pencil, water-based dressmaker’s chalk, water-based pencil crayons, neo-colour water-based crayons, soft body acrylic paint, and acrylic gloss medium. All delicious! I love the contrast of transparent and opaque, and wet and dry.