Nature

Pebble Jellyfish Workshop on Bigbury Beach, November 2023

This jellyfish was the output of a workshop that I led for a group of home educated students, ranging in ages from 11 to 16. To start the session each student was given a bucket and we all took some time explore the beach, collecting pebbles that caught our eye and placing them in our buckets.

Then we did some mindful exercises and listened to the sound of the sea to tune our senses, before each choosing our favourite pebble to examine in detail. After this, together we sorted all the pebbles, grading them by colours and sizes on a sorting mat.

We sketched a rough outline of a jellyfish on the sand and decorated it together with the pebbles, letting the patterns develop organically as people chose themselves where to place them. At the end of the day we photographed the jellyfish being washed back into the sea and reflected on the meaning of impermanence and liminal spaces.

Circles on the Sand Workshop on Bigbury Beach, December 2023

This second workshop was a follow up to the previous jellyfish workshop, working with the same group of home schooled students. Whereas the previous workshop involved collaborative work, this workshop focused on individual creations.

For inspiration we first looked at examples of land artists on an iPad, including circular sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy and Jon Foreman.

The students were each given a stick and piece of string and shown how to draw a circle in the sand by tieing the circle to the stick, placing the stick in the centre of the circle and then using the string to navigate around the stick, marking the circumference of the circle.

Everyone was free to decorate their cicle as they chose. One student chose to build a mound with sand in their circle before decorating it with rocks. Another chose to make a smaller circle out of pretty pebbles.  Each circle was difference.

At the end of the session we walked around to review  and admire each of the sculptures as a group and the students each took pride in explaining what they had sculpted.