‘The Chorus of the Coast'

‘The Chorus of the Coast Premiere’ took place at The Atkinson, Lord Street, Southport on Monday 24^th Nov. 2014

Uclan Games Design Tutor, Bev Bush’s ‘Fabric of the Coast’ will be on display in the Atkinson foyer for a period from that date. 

Bev has made several short films, exploring texture, pattern and layers of translucent colour on the coast. She enjoyed filming people passing behind a veil of silk, suggesting the layers of separation we feel from those we encounter publicly. Watercolours were printed on silk and mixed into the landscape to depict the transience and ambience of the place by suspending them in the coastal location, to integrate them with sounds, light and movement.

See: http://bevbush.blogspot.co.uk/

'The Fabric of the Coast' was created in conjunction with the 'The Chorus of the Coast' arts project designed by the Atkinson’s Community Officer, Danielle Clarke.  “This project, funded by Sefton Coast landscape scheme and HLF, has allowed work with four groups including; St Elizabeth’s RC primary, Formby High, Friends of Kings Gardens and Alzheimer’s Society.  

The sounds on the coast formed the inspiration for a piece of music by composer, Eve Harrison that took the listener on a journey of the coast from Bootle to Southport,

“The Chorus of the Coast.”

http://www.theatkinson.co.uk/2014/11/chorus-of-the-coast-premier-at-the-atkinson/

To see associated films, click here…

Mixing artwork up with the landscape that inspired it!

This watercolour study is layered in silk over the coastal landscape to express movement caused by
the breeze and to depict the transience and ambience of the space, capturing sounds and activity
intermingled with colours and pattern.
This is done in conjunction with The Atkinson's Sefton-wide 'Chorus of the Coast' arts project,
designed and co-ordinated by Danielle Clark, the Atkinson’s Community Officer.
The project explores the environment, sounds and images of the coastline from Crosby to Southport.
The activities organised by The Atkinson include artist-led walks, workshops, environmental art
sessions and the creation of Chorus of the Coast, a sound art composition written by
Composer, Eve Harrison and performed by local schools and community groups.
Watercolours were printed on silk and filmed - mixed into the landscape by suspending them in
layers in the coastal location, to integrate them with the sounds, light and movement of the place.
Click on the images below to see footage of this particular painting.

For a selection of my films for Fabric of the Coast go to Vimeo 

Printing onto silk from watercolour

For the next stage of Fabric of the Coast, I printed a selection of watercolours onto silk so that I could film the fabric within the landscape that inspired it.

Chorus of the Coast Project Premiers at The Atkinson

Chorus of the Coast, a contemporary piece of music, commissioned by The Atkinson and Sefton Coast Landscape Partnership Scheme.
The music from Chorus of the Coast has been composed by Eve Harrison, a critically acclaimed composer and will be performed by St Elizabeth’s Primary and Formby High School alongside The Gildas Quartet and oboist David Currington on Monday 24 November from 6pm.
As part of this arts project, Eve asked the primary school children to create graphical scores to depict the sounds they heard on the coastline at Crosby marina and to draw what they saw.
The children also wrote postcards to Antony Gormley as if from the statues on the beach.
Eve gave me permission to print some of these images onto silk, alongside my landscapes.
Below are the results showing some of the children's imagery.

The Shoreline - The Fabric of the Coast

Along the Sefton shoreline the textures and surface change constantly with tide, time, weather and season.
This gives such a rich source of inspiration and observation and the depiction of light, pattern and tone all play a part in the landscape.
I created these watercolours to depict the layers of translucent tones on the coast. The silk printing gives them a fluid property to reflect the ebb of the tide and movement of the clouds.

The Fabric of the Coast in Watercolour - The Dunes

The Dunes are a a rich source of inspiration for the Fabric of the Coast. They are a wonderfully patterned subject to paint due to the undulating form in the hills overlaid with the variety of textures formed by sand, grasses and bracken, contrasting with the translucent layers of the clouds.

Depicting the coast in Watercolour - Pattern.

The natural starting point for me in depicting the coast, is in watercolour.
Rich fluid hues that gently merge in translucent layers on the surface are so reminiscent of the experience of the shore with it's layered elements of waves, clouds, wind, colour, texture and light.

For the 'Fabric of the Coast' I painted many images with these certain elements in focus.

The following studies focus on Pattern.
I enjoyed observing the jewel-like stones and pebbles that were mainly bricks and mortar from the wreckage of old red brick buildings that have been eroded by the sea at Crosby.
I also noticed the abstract patterns formed by the waves of sand, overlaid with shells, seaweed, feathers and stone and the patterns formed by the footprints of sea birds.