Something Fishy

Recently J D. pointed out that I had done a number of sketches, designs, and pieces of needlework involving fish and other water-dwelling creatures, and that perhaps I should "do something" with them. Without giving the matter much serious thought, I replied that I might do a post called "Something Fishy".  I hadn't given the project much thought, until he later asked what I had done about it.  I said I had to think about fish before I write about them. I got a long look with a seriously raised eyebrow in reply. "I'm thinking!"  I said. His expression suggested that I just might think a little faster.  So when, I thought, did I first get interested in fish? (Isn't memory a strange thing?) And there was the memory, as vivid as if I were watching it on a screen.

Bluegill

It was the summer before I turned seven. It was a hot, dry summer.  Our well had not run dry, but there was already talk abut hauling water for the livestock from an artesian well in the next township. (We did not have electricity, running water, central heat or indoor plumbing, if you can picture that.) We did have a cistern to catch rainwater, but it had gotten so low that we had already hauled enough water from a spring at the back of the property to refill it. I volunteered to go to the bottom of our big hill and see how the creek that ran there was faring. The creek was no longer running. There were a few pools of water that were rapidly evaporating. In the largest pool I found three colorful fish lying on their sides, just barely alive.

Crappie

 I raced to the top of the hill. Charlie, a teen-aged cousin, was staying with us for a couple of weeks. "Charlie," I cried, "We have to save the fish!" Once he understood, he agreed.  We dipped a couple of buckets of the water from the cistern and hurried back down the hill. We carefully lifted the fish from their puddle and hurried to relocate them in the cistern. My dad had been attracted by the commotion. He was a hunter and trapper as well as a farmer, but not much of a fisherman. He identified the fish for us: bluegill, crappie (pronounced croppie), and sunfish. He suspected they came originally from the Wabash River, to which our creek was distantly connected, and mentioned that all three were tasty.   Charlie and I both protested that we hadn't saved their lives just to turn around and eat them!

Green Sunfish

Dad agreed good-naturedly and we three set about catching flies, mosquitoes, earthworms, any any other handy tidbits to feed the fish. We kept that up for two more days, between chores. And then Nature relented and produced a spectacular thunderstorm and two full days of rain, through which we slogged to care for the livestock. We carried the fish back to the creek and released them. They swam away in three different directions, apparently anxious to end their forced association.

 

Tropical fish needlepoint

A couple of decades later I was the head of a science department in a junior high school in northern Virginia. One of our favorite field trip destinations was the National Aquarium in Washington  D.C., which was then housed in the Department of Commerce Building. By that time I had flown back and forth across the Atlantic, seen the coast of Newfoundland, gotten acquainted with the North Sea from Holland, and gotten a glimpse pf the Irish Sea, but I hadn't seen the creatures that lived in those waters. So I also visited the National Aquarium on my own, content to sit for hours. sketching or just watching the infinite variety of fish. Those are also good memories. But, like today, those were turbulent times, and eventually we were forbidden to take field trips into D.C. because of the dangers from riots. Perhaps it is that memory that has been what has turned my eyes and hands to depictions of fish recently.

When you are showing a fish like this, its shape and colors make it stand out. Then you are left with the problem of what to do with all that background around it. You can, of course,  just paint or stitch a flat background in a single color, as if the fish were stuffed and mounted, but that isn't very interesting. I prefer to at least suggest the water through which the fish is swimming.  This is the simplest way to do that. Just use several closely related shades of blue in the watery background, varying the concentration of of each shade so that the water doesn't look like it has stripes.

Rough pattern for oscar needlepoint

This is a color sketch for an Oscar. Oscars are cichlids,  freshwater fish originally from South America, which have now been established in parts of Asia and Australia. These fish have become very popular for personal aquariums. Many are smaller than this one, which is depicted (on an 8.5" x 11" sheet) at about the size limit You can feel free to make the fish in any color scheme you like. If there isn't one like it in captivity, no doubt one will be discovered — or bred — sometime soon. There are multitudes of color photos online if you want to do a realistic rendering. I 'squared-off' some features in order to make a needlepoint picture of the fish which I worked on a standard canvas.

 

Oscar needlepoint

I chose to put my fish in shallow water, lit from above with sunlight, and to surround it with suggestions of different species of water plants. Their unusual colors and patterns, despite their brightness, break up the fish's outline and provide good camouflage.  Some species can also change color to some extent. It is a hunter and has even been described lying flat on one side and "playing dead" to attract its prey. In aquariums they are usually fed crustaceans, earthworms, insects and specially prepared mixtures that are designed to be fed to much larger carnivorous fish.

My memory served up another delight. We were living in Idaho at the time. My husband had some leave time, so we had gone to a weekend affair in the Grand Tetons. We both liked to fish, but he wouldn't eat the fish so we went to "catch and release" before it was even popular. We always had fishing gear in the back of the van, even when we weren't pulling the boat. So we decided to stop at a reservoir on the way home to see how fast the ice was melting.  There was about a three foot stretch of open water, so we took our gear and started along the embankment. We met a lone fisherman and he and my husband started talking. I moved on quite a way ahead of them.

Brown trout

The water was as clear as glass. I could see a big brown trout — my favorite trout — on the bottom. I had a small red and white lure with a lot of action to it on my line, so I dropped it gently on the surface some distance ahead of the brown and started twitching it every few seconds.  I watched him come up from the bottom, opening his mouth wide as he hit the lure.  I set the hook. He fought me the short distance to the shore. My shout as I lifted him out of the water brought the two men running.  The brown was indeed a beautiful fish.  He wasn't badly hooked, and was soon freed. I took him back to the edge and eased him into the frigid water, watching him until he disappeared under the ice.  It was one of those small, perfect moments that you remember forever.

I am often asked for border designs for embroidery, and so have used several in this article. I hope you will find them useful. These are designed for linear stitches like outline and chain stitches. The figures can all face one direction or be used in face-to-face positions alternating with tail-to-tail pairs.

But counted cross-stitch and needlepoint can also be used for larger panels and borders. Here is a segment of a repeatable design that can be done in either of those techniques. If you are going to do needlepoint on a fabric background, use the kind of canvas that is designed to be pulled out when the design is completed and don't pull your stitches so tight that the canvas threads cannot be removed. If this technique is new for you, I recommend you practice on a piece of the canvas and fabric before you undertake a larger composition. Check the work from time to time to make sure your stitches are not getting tighter as you go along, because that is an easy mistake to make.

Fishing can, of course, be frustrating, especially when the fish aren't biting.  But I remember one occasion when it was frustrating because the fish was biting. No, that is not an error in grammar. Let me explain.  It was during the time when we were stationed in Panama. My husband wanted to try fishing from a solitary dock on the Pacific side of the Isthmus. I went along to keep him company. It was a nice

Tiny, spiny puffer fish

day and I was enjoying watching the water birds skim and dive to do their fishing.  My husband was not getting any action. Finally he got a strong tug on his line. The fish put up a good fight, but he finally brought it in. Much to his dismay, it was a small puffer fish that had swallowed enough water to become the size of a football. There are quite a number of these species in tropical and sub-tropical waters. This was one of the kind that, when inflated, was covered with sharp spines poking out of its skin in all directions and was able to deliver a poison if handled improperly.*  He put on heavy gloves and freed the fish from the hook. It was obviously not the first time it had been hooked because it had a distinct scar on one side of its jaw. He took it to the far end of the dock and dropped it back into the water. Twenty minutes or so later, he got another strike and reeled in the fish. He groaned, "It's another one!" "No," I said, pointing to the scar, "it's the same one." He decided that the third time had to be the charm he needed.  Another twenty minutes. Another strike.  Same fish. (I really thought it looked ashamed that time, but it was probably just water-logged.)  My husband announced that since there was apparently only one fish left in the water that the birds hadn't eaten, we might as well go home.  So we did.  And I managed not to laugh once, at least not out loud.

*Not all puffer fish produce the potentially deadly tetrodotoxin, but, if you encounter one, it is probably best to assume that it does. The toxin is also found in other fish like porcupine fish, triggerfish, and ocean sunfish, snails and other mollusks,  some crabs and sea urchins.  On land, it is found in some newts, toads, and frogs. The deadliest carrier of the toxin is the blue-ringed octopus.

Panama Canal. Pacific end

The Panama Canal has caused a lot of problems for local populations of fish and other aquatic or marine creatures. Pacific species, long held back by the unbroken shoreline, invaded the Atlantic Ocean and Atlantic species did the same thing to the Pacific Ocean. These transfers, no longer in a controlled environment, affected not only the species themselves, but also the organisms which ate them or were eaten by them. Some species have disappeared completely and some of the "foreign" species have spread widely, affecting areas a long distance from the Canal itself.

Seahorse drawing by Annake

Here is a big drawing of a very small fish. I think that if I had to choose just one kind of fish to study and draw it would be the seahorses and the related — and even stranger — sea dragons.  These are among the most fascinating of sea creatures, both in appearance and in habits.  many people don't even realize that they are fish.

But there are many species of sea creatures on tropical coral reefs, under the polar ice, and at the bottom of the seas that are little known or understood, if they have even been discovered. And many of them are in danger of extinction before they have even been studied.  The effects of climate change have been magnified and multiplied by our failure to understand and protect the lives of these creatures, many of whom have survived millions, even billions, of years of planetary changes before we ever existed.  The damage that has been done to both freshwater and saltwater habitats in just the past couple of centuries is appalling.  However, I am greatly encouraged by the growing interest among teenagers and young adults in combating these problems. They are taking a global approach toward the problems and are prepared to work cooperatively to overcome them.  I hope all of us will get behind their efforts and support them in any way we can.

Stay well. Stay safe.  Stay positive.

 

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Creatures of Sea and Shore: Seascapes, Part V

Pelicans 3, photo by J.J.

Probably nothing increases the interest of a seascape design more than adding the image of a live sea creature to it. This may be something small like the seagull and fish I showed you in my tongue-in-cheek picture called "Seafood Surprise". It may even be as elementary as a few seabirds, each indicated by a vaguely V-shaped line. On the other hand, the animal may dominate the design, using the sea simply as background. Think of a hump-backed whale rising out of the water. In this issue, we will be featuring marine life in needle arts, art prints, and photographs, beginning with this photograph by J.J.  While these pelicans do not live in the sea, they certainly depend upon it for their survival. Their species has been sustaining itself this way for a very long time and their bodies have been modified to do so in the most efficient manner.

Tropical fish needlepoint by Annake

Fish, of course are the elemental sea creatures and come in a seemingly endless variety of shapes and colors.  The fish that live around coral reefs are especially colorful. Some, like seahorses and sea dragons, are so surprising and unlikely-looking that they seem to have been designed by Walt Disney! Others are so well camouflaged that you hardly notice them at all. If you would rather portray living animals than true seascapes, you can't go wrong with fish. They can carry a composition by themselves, with just a watery background to set the stage.

Colorful fish design for upcoming needle arts projects

Many fish are sleek and streamlined. These inspire me to do stylized and even semi-abstract designs.  This one made me think of doing a project in reverse applique because of its black over-all shape and vivid areas of color. I still intend to use the design in that way, but decided to sketch it on canvas and do it in continental stitch first. Sometime later I will cut the outline out of black felt and applique the colored areas from the back (a technique called reverse applique) vivid scraps of silk and satin. Then I will applique the whole construction onto a watery-looking fabric and frame it or make it into a pillow or wall hanging. Use these links to see a pair of these finished fish designs. [Links to the fighting fish and goldfish] We will show both styles of needlework in future posts.

Photo by J.J.

Fish are not easy to photograph in the water, but J.J. was patient and  "caught" this one lurking just under the surface.  It would be relatively easy to add one like it to either a saltwater scene or a lake shore composition.

It is easy to be interested in — and even concerned about — animals like dolphins and cuddly sea otters, but J.D. was adamant that I include some of the creatures who are far less like us, but just as interesting and beautiful in their own ways.  J.J. was able to creep up behind this little fellow while his stalked eyes were looking the other way.  Just look at the intricate construction of his body and the delicacy of his coloring. Isn't he wonderful?

Crab photo by J.J.

Sea turtle print by Annake

Here is a sketch of a sea turtle that I made long ago in the tropics and which we have made into a print. Sadly, all sea turtles are endangered now. I always thought of this one as a male, swimming through a bed of kelp and sea grass.
From the day they hatch, the males spend their entire lives at sea. The mature females travel huge distances and undergo great physical struggles to return to the beaches where they hatched and lay their eggs.

J.J. found this shy little octopus hiding in a very shallow tide pool, waiting patiently for the next tide. They can remain out of water for a surprisingly long time and even travel over land for short distances. They are very intelligent and can solve puzzles. As anyone who has tried to keep one in an aquarium can tell you, they are "escape artists" who make Harry Houdini look like an amateur!

Octopus photo by J.J.

Sea Otter

Now let's look at some of those warm-blooded sea mammals that we respond to more readily. Here are three who spend most of their time in the ocean, but come on shore occasionally to rest or to deliver and care for their babies. Who doesn't like a cuddly-looking sea otter?

Galapagos Sea Lions

This is a mother sea lion with her pup. You can tell that they are not seals because they have small external ears, while seals do not.  I wanted to use this print to make a point about horizons. When a horizon is very low, as this one is, it makes any figure in front of it — whether person, animal, or rock — look larger and more imposing. In this picture, the sea, while important to the setting, can be very simple and understated. The sea lions have very streamlined bodies and are a good choice if you are just starting to draw animals for your compositions.  Or you can easily cut out their shapes from a photograph if you prefer.

Walrus

All right, so he was grumpy and probably didn't want to pose for his portrait. Not even animals in zoos or wildlife sanctuaries always enjoy close attention from we strange two-legged creatures who want to sketch or photograph them.  Fortunately a good long lens allows one to get a good image without getting too close to the grumpy ones. I think he shows a lot of character, impressive teeth (the Inuit call walruses "tooth-walkers" because they use their tusks to haul themselves out of the water and up steep slopes), and a really great mustache!

We hope you have enjoyed this post as much as we three enjoyed putting it together for you.

This is the last article in the Seascape series, at least for now. We may ‘re-visit’ it from time to time. Look for an article on Skyscapes sometime in May.

J.D., J.J., and

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Ships at Harbor: Seascapes in Needle Arts, Part IV

Claude Monet,  fishing boat at anchor at Rouen

A painting, whether super-realistic or abstract is made up of shapes. To be interesting, the shapes should have rhythm, variety, and an element of surprise or unpredictability. That's quite a balancing act!  Rhythm implies repetition; too much repetition is boring and the viewer loses interest.  Variety suggests a collection of differing shapes, but this may be confusing or even irritating to the viewer.  (Haven't you ever seen clothing or upholstery material that you felt was too ‘busy’ for your taste or been in a room that was so cluttered that you didn't feel comfortable in it?)  Surprise means something unexpected introduced into the scene, but it probably should not be something so incongruous that it takes a viewer's mind completely away from the picture as a whole.

Claude Monet, sailboats

Look at the harbor scene above and notice how well the artist has used his shapes.  See how the strong vertical shapes of the masts and the fainter diagonals of the rigging rhythmically break up the horizontal areas of the water, the line of trees, and the passive sky with its barely suggested clouds. The shapes and colors of the boats' hulls add variety, as do the ripples that break up the mass of the water and provide a second area of rhythm.  The bright white sails of the boat in the background give us that element of difference and focus our attention.  The artist was Claude Monet, leader of the Impressionist movement. Although he is not known primarily for marine paintings, he did a number of them. (Another one of his is shown at the top of this article.) He was fascinated by the effects of light on water and continued to use them in his paintings throughout his entire career.

Sketch of an approaching storm, by Annake

There are some generalizations that we can make about shapes and areas in a composition (always remembering that rules are made to be broken.)  The large horizontal areas of sea and sky are generally considered as negative spaces and passive shapes unless something active, like a storm, plays out against them. In the preliminary sketch to the right, the clouds and the wavelets beginning to form on the surface of the water are active, carrying the energy of the fast-approaching storm. Vertical and diagonal shapes are generally considered to be active and positive.  Something like a tree is more "active" than a nearby boulder.  If a scene is dominated by horizontal areas and vertical shapes or lines, diagonal shapes like the white sails on the boat are often added to the scene for contrast. Curved shapes like rolling hills are more passive; turbulent curved waves or breakers are very active.  Too many passive shapes can make a composition seem dull, even though it is attractive in other ways.

Rule of Thirds grid tool

An arc can be a powerful shape in a composition, particularly if it is at the edge of a point of interest, such as one of the focal points where the "Rule of Thirds" applies.  This plastic overlay, which we showed first in Part V of the Landscape series, works just as well for seascapes as it does for landscapes. We show it here the portrait position (in contrast to the landscape position we presented the first time). If you have not yet made this handy tool, now is a good time to do so.  You only need a sheet of clear plastic, a ruler or other straight edge, and a marking pen. Divide the plastic sheet into thirds, both vertically and horizontally, and mark the four points of intersection. Your primary point of interest in a composition should be at or near one of these points.  A secondary point of interest, if you include one, should be at or near the point diagonally across from the primary one.

A shape that may be interesting by itself can get lost in, and be neutralized by, other shapes unless it is supported by color and contrast.  If a shape that you are using is distracting from, or not contributing to, your composition, try moving it. If that doesn't work, remove it. This is especially true if you are doing a composition in applique. Before you stitch anything to a background,  be sure that the shapes that you have chosen to cut out are really contributing to the design.  When you are satisfied with the arrangement, pin it in place and check it one more time before you begin to stitch. View it from a distance as well as at close range. If you decide that a piece isn't right after you have sewn it in place you may be unwilling to remove it, even though it weakens the design.

I know that some of you are concentrating on lakeside or riverside scenes, rather than true seascapes. You can certainly put sailboats, motorboats, rowboats — even rafts and inflatables — into those compositions to give variety and points of interest that counterbalance the landscape and water.

Claude Monet, "The Bridge at Argenteuil"

Here is another Monet painting, obviously portraying an inland waterway, which may give you some ideas. Notice how the boats cover the primary point of interest at the lower left (when the plastic overlay is in the horizontal position), while the towers on the bridge are close to the secondary point of interest, diagonally at the upper right. The bridge itself moves away in a slightly diagonal line, and the arches and reflections introduce another rhythm. A more passive rhythm is created by the variety of shade trees in the background.  The other building in the scene occupies a place close to the point of interest on the upper left, but is less "positive" than the other two.

It is all too easy to get so interested in the smaller positive or "active" features of your composition that  you neglect the larger negative or "passive" parts of it. But they are equally important to the success of your design. You have just seen me making shapes and I have emphasized the importance of their arrangement for applique projects. They are also important for embroidery projects where the background fabric(s) will show between the areas of embroidery.  In my tapestry work I often do three-dimensional, even padded, stitching on top of a background of tent stitch or other essentially flat stitches, so I'm always planning my backgrounds first. Here is a simple technique that I use when I am working on an unpainted canvas. I have used it successfully as a teaching technique with school-age children as well as older students.

Examples of materials needed for the exercise

First collect all the colored paper that you can find: stationery, poster paper, wrapping paper, tissue paper, colored newspaper advertisements, etc. You will need scissors and a glue stick or other adhesive. Cut a piece of heavy paper, poster board, or cardboard in the size and shape that you want for your final design. Work first with the two large ares of your seascape. Will the sky be light blue, bright blue, dark blue, light gray, dark gray, or sunset colors? Cover the area you have designated as sky with the appropriate colored paper. Do the same thing with the part of the picture that you have reserved for the sea. When you are satisfied with the proportions of these two areas, glue them to the background.

Think about ways that might make these areas more interesting. Can you put in tall, impressive clouds or sweeping, diagonal ones? Is there an island or headland in the area where sea and sky meet? Is it rocky, with hard shapes, or soft and rounded? Is it grass-covered or does it have trees?  Are the tress broad-leaved trees, evergreens, or palms (each has a different outline)? What is at the bottom of your picture? Rocks, a sandy beach, a jetty? Cut pieces of paper in the shapes and colors of the appropriate features and place them on your background, but do not glue them to the background.

Mock-up of a background using cut shapes

Now cut out the positive, active features that you planned your composition around. Position your pieces where you think they will be most effective.  Again, do not glue them to the paper. Then reconsider the shapes you put in during the second stage of this process.  If the pieces do not contribute to the design, move them. If they still don't help, remove them. Glue in place the features of this group that you want to keep. Now reconsider the entire composition.  Are your positive pieces completing the design the way you intended? When they are doing that, glue them in place.

Congratulations! Now you have a good "working model" and are ready to begin creating with your choice of materials.

Keep up the good work!

Claude Monet, Regatta in Argenteuil

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Fog, Flashing Lights, and Flotsam: Seascapes, Part III

Surf & Rainbow, photo by J.J.

It is foggy this morning. Fog is essentially a cloud that has dropped to ground level. The tiny droplets of water that we feel on our faces as mist are not large or heavy enough to fall as rain, nor are they cold enough to start crystallizing into snowflakes.  Fog is relatively rare in this high, dry country. It is usually welcome because it brings the promise of rain or snow to this drought-damaged region. I can, however, remember a year when fog lingered from mid-December through mid-January,  leaving people short-tempered and depressed. Fog is an emotional thing.

Fog dampens sounds, distorts distances, and interferes with our sense of direction, making it easy to become lost. From an artistic standpoint, it reduces even a complex scene to a few basic shapes. That simplifies the scene and gets rid of a lot of clutter. Only the closest objects and the most distinctive shapes remain. Any source of light or reflection becomes a focal point. On the other hand, fog neutralizes the colors of everything. Fog is gray.

Grey-scale of photo by J.J.

In Part I of this series, we showed J.J.'s photograph of sunrise over the harbor. J.D. has shown it here in gray scale as it might have looked on a foggy morning. Old black-and-white snapshots could also give you more ideas for how things might appear in a light fog.

Much of my artwork lately consists of prints J.D. makes from detailed drawings I've done in graphite, charcoal, and black ink, so I am very interested in grays. I work with them practically every day. We think of grays as mixtures of black and white, but that is a very limited view. Very lively grays can be achieved by mixing complementary colors — the ones directly opposite each other on the color wheel. This technique can give you an array of warm grays, cool grays, soft grays, opaque grays, etc.

Simple color wheel

It is a good practice to mix complementary colors in needlepoint, particularly in shadows, which always show some of the complementary color of the object which casts the shadow. You might want to make some reference samples of this kind of work. You can do this with separate strands of floss or yarn. The strands can be twisted together or you can use them separately, side by side. Stitch fine lines of the colors close together on small swatches of fabric or canvas that you can keep for future reference. Hold the finished sample at arm's length to see how the blend appears. Keep and use the combinations you like best. Sometimes you may even get an iridescent effect. Orange and blue are complementary colors. Browns are grouped in the orange family of colors. I have gotten nice results with some mixtures of blues and browns. Try a cool greenish blue with a warm reddish brown, for example, or a purplish blue with a yellowish tan.*

Complementary colors from the wheel with their mixed grays

People have been going to sea for thousands of years. Many must have perished in fog, perhaps tragically close to safe harbors. Seacoast cities began building tall towers with large fires burning on top of them to serve as beacons.  The most famous one of these lighthouses was on the island of Pharos by the mouth of the harbor at Alexandria, Egypt. Built by Pharaoh Ptolemy II between 290 and 280 B.C. (BCE),  it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  It survived for more than 16 centuries before it was destroyed by an earthquake. Writers described it as 450 feet (135 meters) tall. Focused by huge polished bronze mirrors, its light could be seen 40 miles (65 km) at sea. There has recently been a magnificent computer reconstruction of it.

A U.S. lighthouse (public domain photo)

Many of these lighthouses were built along the coasts of the United States and some of the Great Lakes to guide ships by their fixed or flashing lights.  Their use has declined since World War II because so many vessels now use SONAR and GPS positioning systems. A few, mostly remotely controlled, are still in use. Others have become converted to tourist attractions, maritime museums, even private homes.  But the lighthouse is still a romantic structure, loved by painters, photographers, and fiction writers. Lighthouses are a popular subject for large photograph calendars. Now that 2019 has already begun, you may find these handsome pictorial calendars on sale for a reduced rate. They are good references for creating your own lighthouse design. Those of you who prefer landscapes to seascapes may be content with the small amount of ocean visible around a lighthouse.

Lighthouse collage by Annake

This picture is one of my collages, now belonging to J.D. Those of you who are quilters can probably imagine stitching a scene like this on top of a patchwork background. It would also be attractive done in trapunto, a type of decorative raised quilting, on a pillow top. In trapunto, two parallel lines are stitched through at least two layers of material to outline the design. Then the bottom layer has slits made in it and stuffing is inserted between the lines. If the lines are quite close together, a heavy cord,  instead of stuffing,  can be worked into the space between the lines.

Watercolor study for a wall hanging

The word flotsam comes to us from maritime law, where it referred to items deliberately dumped into the ocean from ships. Over the years it has come to mean anything that floats on the water. Much of this flotsam eventually washes up on beaches. Most of it is just garbage that needs to be removed in order to keep the beaches clean and safe. It is unsightly; some of it is dangerous. Nevertheless, an attentive person walking on a beach will find something attractive: pretty seashells, branches of coral, deep-sea fishing lures, glass floats, etc. These objects can be put together in collections or made into artistic arrangements.

The picture at the side of this section of the article is a watercolor sketch for a quickpoint wall hanging. It is 23 inches (58 cm) long and 9 inches (23 cm) wide. When the wall hanging is completed, it could be hung either horizontally or vertically.  I think I prefer to hang it vertically, so that is the way I have shown it here. A sketch in progress for a similar composition is shown horizontally, below. I have not chosen a final background color for that composition yet. Those of you who enjoy doing still life designs should enjoy putting together an assortment like one of these. A pattern like one of these, with a wider background, could also be used for a latch-hook rug.

Another watercolor study of flotsam

Think of a foggy day as a fortunate time to spend with a good book (or sketchbook) or to read blog posts like this one.

* Look for more on this subject in our series on using color, coming this spring,

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.