As expected June has been a busy sea mat month. Signs of sea mat life are really beginning to emerge under the water. I am beginning to discover which regions/shore types the two different sea mats prefer. Membranipora membranacea ( otherwise affectionately known by me hear on in a ‘Pora’) definitely prefers the deeper rocky laminarian ( kelp ) areas and the Pilosa the shallower more sheltered areas. Pilosa seems to be a big fan of the Serrated Wrack.
It’s not great but I’mdefinitely getting betterat sketching underwater.
I know the subject better too. Which makes it easier. I’ve discovered you can’t get the sea mat detail, it’s too fine. Only benefit the concentration on the subject which drawing brings. However I know something about the ‘Pora’ from snorkelling that I wouldn’t have got from drawing it on the shore. It grows in vast sheets and has an incredible shimmering pearlescence with a slate of marks underneath a little like regular leopard spots. When you lift it out of the water it all vanishes; cool!!
When I emerged from the water after this snorkel I discovered a piece of washed up serrated wrack covered in fresh electra pilosa, so I tool it
back to the studio. I was able to make a little bit more of a detailed study of the growth patterns of emerging colonies. On the serrated wrack EP grew largely from the bottom of the plant up. Ep grows pretty fast..
It would be interesting to see how big this piece of wrack was when it was first colonised.. What delighted me about this piece of washed up wrack was that I was also able to see tiny ‘shallow’ colony spots, with hardly any depth. The individual zooids had not completely formed.
On the creative visualising front.
I’ve been thinking about some options for developing a collagraph; perhaps blind embossing, or making an artist’s book. I love the idea of the larvae bursting out in their millions from the pages. Books are such good vehicles of expression, and it doesn’t have to be a written word. The blind embossing would be a way of reflecting the subtlety and translucency of the animal. I also keep coming back to this sketch I made, which I would like to develop so that it reflects the reproductive behavior of the colonies..
Maybe I could arrange this book form like the spokes of a wheel, with rocky islets at the edges housing the kelp and wrack.. hmm.
