Our Neighbour Simon...

hard at work on his project...a 'homage' to the sandcastle...this was a 'procedural' act...creating sandcastles as the tide went out and then observing the inevitable collapse of same as it returned. Visitors were invited to write simple statements on small flags that were inserted into the individual castles...

The Last Set...

This is the last of the project bunch of images...a testimony I feel to the power of new technology to evoke the true spirit of traditional media...in this case paintings...to their full potential.

Last two Batches

These are the penultimate images from the Seaside project - there were more of course but quite a few participants collected their work at the end of the two days.

Still They Keep Coming!

Some real subtleties in these! although the last is quite a tormented image - that puts me in mind of the work of the Irish painter Jack B Yeats.

The Sands

Five more images from the project - love the kids running across the sand!

View From The Huts

There is no disputing that the beaches along the east coast are some of the best in Europe...and when the weather (and especially the light) is good then there are few better sights in the UK.

More Abstract than before...

These pictures have a vigour and abstract qualities that (particularly this last one) remind me of some recent abstract painting from the US.

The Sea Around Us

The latter two images show such subtlety whilst the former such an admirable lack of restraint!

More of the Pictures...

from the project... some subtlety here!

More pictures from the Seascapes project

Here are some examples from the participants in our seascape project. It attracted all ages and all talents...some showed great delicacy and some admirably showed none at all but simply 'went for it' - I especially love the last of these - a three year old with a vivid imagination of what Sutton might have looked like that weekend...

The Project Hut...

Louise and myself established a project in our hut. Her idea entirely that I joined in with enthusiastically. It focused on the idea of painting seascapes utilising scraps of wood culled from old blinds...the strings of which we then deployed to hang the work that resulted.

Over the two days we attracted upwards of 50 people to 'have a go' and with a bit of arm twisting of colleagues and friends managed to have a gallery of nearly 70 images by the end of the Sunday. Although several people came back to claim their work 40 plus images came back from the coast. Digitising the results and blowing them up on screen concentrates the act of looking - so much so that subtleties not apparent when viewing the display as a whole become a real delight.

This is the first of the images - one of those that attempts a reasonably 'straight' depiction of the view from the hut. The lone figure is the artist Simon Withers, who was our neighbour for the weekend, and worked on a sandcastle project...this must have been from the Sunday when weather conditions dictated the need for a waterproof jacket.

Three Days of Fun

This year's Festival (that takes place in Mablethorpe and Sutton-on-Sea and is 'the longest linear Coastal Arts Festival in the world' - and maybe the only one!) took place over the 17th, 18th and 19th September. All seven of us, Jackie Berridge, Dee Shiels, Lori Amor, Sarah R Key, Alison Whitmore, Louise Garland and myself, David Manley, had arrived by Friday night. So we were in place for the official opening conducted by the Mayor, Cllr. Paddy Prince and accompanied by music, Pimms and scrumptious cakes! We topped this off with a classic seaside fish supper...corny maybe but when you throw in a sunset like this...a marvellous way to spend an evening.

Welcome!

Welcome to this blog that documents the participation of members of the Harrington Mill Studios at the 2010 'Bathing Beauties' Festival. Seven studio holders participated in the event and what will follow shows what they displayed and made over the weekend.