A Day by the Ocean

Hello friends,

There is something timeless and soothing about the sea isn’t there? This week I wanted to share some snaps from a summer days spent at Perranporth Beach in Cornwall and I wanted to take you with me! 

You may or may not have know but Wednesday 8th June was World Ocean Day so with that in mind I hope you enjoy this seaside themed post.

It’s hard to believe that this picturesque photo of the sea lapping against the sand was taken in the UK, but it was (in fact it’s a beach in Cornwall). The Cornish light is something I truly love when it comes to creating art or taking photographs!

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Queen Elizabeth II sketch

In the UK and commonwealth this weekend we are celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her 70 years on the throne! The bunting is up, the flags are out and we the British are going to have picnics and street parties outdoors…even if its pouring with rain!

So I thought that on this the Platinum Jubilee weekend I would actually post the sketch I’ve completed of Queen Elizabeth II, its been lovely being drawing in the garden the breeze has been lovely. I had a few stamps and thought it would be fun to draw the side portrait that adorns British coins and stamps.

Although I love sitting with a set of pencils and trying to capture a persons image on paper, I’ve never actually posted any of them online because I’m A.) not very good at realistically drawing humans and B.) I have a phobia that people who view my sketches won’t be able to immediately guess who the portrait is of (which is mortifying!).

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A Beautiful view {One frame}

Hello friends!

A new sea view landscape one frame this week as the weather has been amazing and I’ve been able to explore a little bit I thought I’d take you to my favourite place in the world. You really could be any where in the world, when I’m at this particular spot I like to think that I’m on a magical tropical island in the middle of nowhere! 

Isn’t this an absolutely stellar view?

This was taken in my favourite spot on the cliffs above Perranporth beach in Cornwall, but really it could be in the caribbean (esp when the weather is this amazing!!)

With the sea fading into the distance and the clouds revealing just a little patch of bright blue sky. there’s a tiny patch of sand but the main focus of the image is the little palms and the grasses of the dunes. I feel particularly happy with the way I captured this view – I even managed to keep the horizon level – which is something I always struggle with when taking landscape shots.

So, that’s it for this week post! Next week is the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II so I’m going to post something along the line of celebrating our Longest reigning Queen…I really hope you enjoyed this little slice of paradise, do you have a favourite place in the world? being close to nature is one of the most calming things in the universe and can really settle your sprit when stressed or down. As always I want to thank you for reading and I wish you a wonderful week!

An Afternoon on the Beach

Hello friends,

There is something ultimately relaxing about being on the beach isn’t there? This week I wanted to share some snaps from a few spring days spent at Perranporth Beach in Cornwall and I wanted to take you with me, so this weeks post is all about the beach and the happiness of being outdoors!

I hope these photos bring as much sunshine to your day as much as they did mine. Did you know that beaches are made from their surround and can be identified by the materials they are made of – like a finger print, how cool is that!

I love how the rock formations are really dark in the foreground, with a little light cutting through between the rocks and shining on the sand and water. Even my dog wanted to be in this one…

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Advice from a Caterpillar

Hello friends,

I hope you’ve had a good week so far! This weeks post a few pieces of art about about one of my all time favourite book characters – the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland! And I thought maybe it might be fun to post some pages from my sketchbook.

And while the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations are in black and white in the book the Caterpillar is described as being blue (and precisely 3 inches tall) so I thought that tall my caterpillar related art should use blue tones. Theres a couple of cute drawings, some hand lettering art of “How Doth the Little Crocodile” and a brilliant Terry Pratchett quote!

So, enjoy some blue toned caterpillar/mushroom related art…I hope you like it.

This caterpillar is based more from the 2010 film directed by Tim Burton, I think the movie Absalom (although in the books he doesn’t have a name and is just referred to as the Caterpillar) is much more chilled out than the 1951 Disney version – who in my opinion was far too much of a diva and he yells at Alice far too often ! It’s drawn with crayons which are far harder to control than I remember them being as a kid!

“How Doth the Little Crocodile” is a poem by Lewis Carroll which appears in his 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice recites it while attempting to recall “Against Idleness and Mischief” by Isaac Watts. It’s such a brilliant little poem and has always been one that stuck in my head.

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Earth Day 2022

Hello friends!

I’ve been on a bit of a tech detox from everything but my camera, which has been amazing – it helped that the weather was been good and that I didn’t want to be inside! But now I’m back in the real world and since today is Earth Day 2022 I thought I’d share some rather nice beach photography with you.

It’s amazing how a little bright sunlight effects the way we see the world. Gone are the dark bleak days of December here is the lush sunlight of April (until it starts raining of course!)

Anyway, enjoy some beach/earth related photography and a couple of ocean related pages from my sketchbook…

A few foot prints left in the sand as the saying goes “Take only photos, Leave only footprints” But just to prove that plastic will be with us forever…here’s some Lego that I found on the beach apparently it fell off a ship in the 90’s! I like to think that the mermaids were very happy when sea themed lego fell in the sea!

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Wildflowers in the spring

Hello my friends!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately but changing my url threw up a few challenges with my site and I though that it was best to get the issues sorted before posting anything else! But it gave me a chance to tweak a few things that I’d already posted and I’ve been able to redesign my avatar!

Seeing as this is my first post since the start of meteorological spring I thought I’d share some flower photography with you.

Its amazing how autumn is my favourite season until spring and summer arrive in full force and the beautiful colours of regrowth bloom and all the bees come back…even this early in the year there are bees in the garden and quite a lot of butterflies!

So, enjoy some floral photography…

These are two of my favourite plants to grow the little white daisy type flowers are camomile and the other is actually a runner bean flowers – they both attracted so many bees last year! Runner bean flowers in particular are so delicate and watching them slowly creep over the green house frame was amazing.

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Winter Sunset {One frame}

Hello friends!

I hope life is treating you with compassion and respect! Just a short one frame post this week. changing the url threw up a few issues with my site and google has had to re-crawl everything, so I though by not posting few a couple of weeks might be helpful. 

The weather has been so up and down recently, it’s quite depressing really.

So when I found myself with a dry sunny evening I couldn’t help but get my camera out.

The sunset over the river was amazing, especially as the swans were still about. Although Autumn is my favourite season, thankfully spring is almost here and it will be summer soon, so hopefully the weather will be a little dryer and less grey.

The smoothness of the sky is contrasted so nicely against the blackness of the distant trees, I love how the colours change from light to dark, with the little duck in silhouette against the ripples of the water.

So, that’s it for this post! I really enjoy the challenge of picking just one image – but that’s part of the fun…next week I’m hoping to create a little floral photography post. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Fungi Patterns

Hello friends!

This week I want to share a little bit of photo editing with you! a while ago I decided to see if I could find anything magical to photograph and went out in the wilderness where I found a little patch of grassland fungi! These beautiful mushrooms were so tiny and their colours seemed so vivid against the green of the grass (especially in December!). And then I thought instead to just editing them, why not manipulate them in Affinity to try and create some interesting patterns.

So, enjoy some wild foraging symmetry…

Symmetry is apparent when both sides of a photo mirrors the each other, createing a feeling of harmony and making the image more pleasing to look at. Now there are some with a great enough talent to do this naturally when using a camera – I find it easier and more fun to put an image into my photo editing and manipulation software (I use Affinity Photo its like Adobe Photoshop.) and then repeat the image the desired amount of times, flipping and rotating were necessary.

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Swans in black and white

Hello my friends,

I hope you had a safe and joyful new year! 

Lots has been happening here – I’ve changed my url to artymissk.com (it feels so cool to be .com) and I thought that I’d kick off my first real post of the year with some photo editing. I really love black and white images – they feel timeless so I thought I’d have a go at editing the swan photos that I took last year.

I really love black and white images – they feel timeless so I thought I’d have a go at editing the swan photos that I took last year.

These pictures are beautiful in colour of course but the elegant tones of black and white really highlight the shape of the birds.

Mute Swans really are magical birds. The local ones although being totally wild, are really rather domesticated and friendly! They get incredibly close – the adults are enormous and will actually take food form your hands.

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