Thoughts on beachcombing

I am really enjoying my beachcombing hobby, and I started to think about why I like it. I think part of it is the human hunter gatherer instinct - we don't need to spend time tracking down our next meal, but it's part of human nature to go out and look for things.

It's also a meditation on how we as humans affect the world. The sea pottery and glass that I find were once waste products in themselves, but I also see a lot of plastic waste on the seashore. And bringing my finds home and using them is a way of recycling or upcycling. There's a lot of time to think about all this while wandering along the beach.

My walks are also helping me to learn about nature. I can see the different creatures that are washed up on the shore, the shells, and the seaweeds. There are seasonal changes in the weather, and the movements of the tides to consider.

My finds are tying in with my interest in local history, so I'm reading about the potteries and glassworks in the area and looking at pictures of the items they produced.

One of the great things about beachcombing is that it is helping me to achieve a lot of my 2018 goals. It's encouraging me to walk more, to relax, to spend time in nature, and it's fun for free. It's also letting me be spontaneous because sometimes I'll just decide at short notice to head off to a beach. It's creating happy memories, and encouraging me to enjoy experiences rather than things (although it has to be said I bring a lot of "things" home with me!). And I can use my finds to create. Which is all helping me to be happy!

How to draw sea pottery

Drawing sea pottery is really easy! Here's the step-by-step technique that I use.

1. Draw around the piece of pottery in pencil

2. Go over the outline with a fine black pen. You can add extra lines at one side to make it look three dimensional.

3. Draw any fine details with coloured fineliners

4. Add any bold details with coloured brush pens

5. If you want a shadow, add that with a grey brush pen.

Drawing sea pottery is a great way of recording your finds. You can write down where you found them, or who the manufacturer was.

How to draw sea glass

I thought it would be fun to try different materials and techniques to draw or paint sea glass. This could be useful, for example, if you wanted to record different pieces in your collection and where you found them. 

I started by drawing the outlines of some sea glass shapes. I then filled these in using different materials in four steps. The first row is coloured pencil, the second Tombow markers, and the third is watercolour. I used a similar technique for each of them.

1. I used one colour to roughly fill in each piece.

2. I used the same or a similar colour to go over this and give more depth.

3. I added more shadow using grey inside the sea glass pieces.

4. I added a shadow under each piece using grey.

And here's how I've used the Tombow markers version in my bullet journal.

Displays using sea glass and pottery

I've been collecting so much sea glass and pottery, that I had to think of some ways to use it around my home! One fun way to use it is to add it to little displays around the house.

The display in my hall changes every so often, and at the moment it's themed around the Moomins. Sea glass fits very well with the lighthouse I got in a Moomin advent calendar, and the book Moominpappa at Sea.

The first place I ever found sea glass and pottery was in Italy, so it was natural that I would include those in the Italian themed display I had a few years ago, along with some beach pebbles that I'd also found there.

And I'm coming up with other ideas of where to display my sea glass and pottery, like alongside this appropriate Jenny Colgan book.

 

And beside this, also appropriate, William Blake quote, on my spray-painted letter board.

Sea pottery mosaic brooch

I thought it would be fun to put some of my tiny pieces of sea pottery to a good use, so I decided on a brooch.

I had some grout left over from a mosaic kit I got in a charity shop, a wooden circle left over from a dollshouse kit, and a brooch pin, so I had everything I needed!

1. I started by laying out my pottery pieces on a wooden circle, to create a pleasing design. 

2. Once I'd decided on the placement, I glued them in place with PVA glue.

3. As the glue was drying I mixed the grout.

4. I spread the grout over the whole design, including round the edges, and wiped some of the excess off.

5. After the grout had dried a little, I wiped the rest of the excess off.

6. I glued a brooch pin on the back.

The whole thing took less than an hour to make, and it was all dry and ready to wear on my Seasalt dress the next day! I can't wait to gather more tiny pieces in different colours to make more jewellery!

Sea glass storage and display ideas

Gathering lots of sea glass and pottery means you have to find ways to display or store it all. While you may keep some of it in boxes hidden away, it's always good to have some out where you can see it.

The simplest idea of all is to put sea glass in a glass jar, and I have a few of these on the go.

Another idea is keeping some of it in bowls.

A box frame can be filled with sea glass and fairy lights to make a light box.

The bases of pottery jars found on the beach are great for display. 

And printers' trays or thimble houses are also great for displaying your finds. A little dab of museum wax can be helpful to stop the items falling over. 

  

Beachcombing books

I've only got a couple of books to help me in my beachcombing so far, but I'm looking forward to getting more.

The Essential Guide to Beachcombing and the Strandline by Steve Trewhella and Julie Hatcher is really in-depth and fascinating. It mainly concentrates on all the living things that you will find washed up on the beach, and it arrived just after some big storms so I found it really useful! It hasn't much in it about sea glass or pottery, which are what I mainly go to the beach to find, but I didn't mind this at all as I am interested in all the things I see around me when I'm beachcombing.

The other book is The Ultimate Guide to Sea Glass. This has beautiful photos in it, and lots of helpful tips. I did have a couple of problems with the book, though, one on the production side and the other with the way it was written. I found that the placement of a lot of the photos didn't tie up with how they were mentioned in the text - the book would say that a photo was below when it was above, or mention something on the left of the photo that was actually on the right. I also felt that the writer spent a bit too much time talking about how good her own powers of identifying sea glass are, which came across as a tiny bit arrogant although I'm sure she didn't mean it that way.

Beach hearts

One of the things I really enjoy at the beach is finding heart-shaped stones, bits of shells, and pieces of pottery or sea glass. 

Like my love of collecting sea glass, my interest in hunting for hearts started on the Cinque Terre in Italy, where I first found a heart-shaped stone by the side of a path, then seemed to see heart and star shapes in various different places. 

Sometimes I take my heart-shaped finds home, but recently I’ve started to "collect" them by just taking photos of some of them.

Sea beads and buttons

The most colourful things that I've found so far on the beach have been beads and buttons. It's sometimes hard to tell whether beads are glass or plastic, but I don't really mind. And I've even found a whole bracelet in lovely seaside colours.