No sand…just pebbles

My piece in response to the theme 'monochrome' developed from a trip to my favourite beache on the north coast, Porthtowan, with a friend who was visiting. The winter storms had changed the beach so much that I hardly recognised some of my favourite rocks where I have sat and sunbathed many times over the years.

Lots of the sand has been scoured from the beach leaving vast expanses of dark grey rocks that weren't exposed before all the bad weather.

It all felt rather depressing as we walked along. But then I noticed all the grey and white pebbles under my feet and suddenly thought maybe here is my way into the monochrome piece...

So I collected as many different pebbles as I could get home, and then photographed them as my reference for the piece of work.
















While I was thinking about this project spotted a remnant of black fake leather in local shop and suddenly it all started to take shape in my mind.  I liked the idea of a contrast of textures and slightly unusual back ground this might provide.

I made my pebbles using a range of techniques: acrylic painted Bondaweb on black and white felts, Tyvek painted with black ink before heating, and some by making collage of mesh and fibres between layers of dissolvable fabric. Then I stitched them to backing fabric with a very fat wadding to give them as much height as possible. Once all the pebbles were made I dropped them into pre-cut holes in the leather and then attached them with zigzag stitch around the edge of each pebble.

My husbands response when he first saw it finished was "I don't know if you are genius or just very weird!" Here is the final result. You decide!

Thanks for reading, Chris