Frozen pool with rope. Mari French 2014
Photographs from my walk around Harpley today. Sub zero temperatures overnight had left some interesting results. I particularly like the way natural and man made objects have been trapped in the iced-over puddles.
Umbellifer. Mari French 2014
Umbellifer 2. Mari French 2014
Frozen pool. Mari French 2014
Frozen pool 2. Mari French 2014
Frozen pool. Mari French 2014
Trapped leaves in ice. Mari French 2014
Melted frost catching the sun. Mari French 2014
Sketchbook. Burnham Overy salt marsh, December. Mari French 2014
Recently on an overcast winter day I visited the small Norfolk coastal village of Burnham Overy Staithe and for the first time explored the salt marshes there along the path to the beach. I went back soon after on a cold but bright December day to do some sketching and photography.
Such an exhilarating place, with the calls of the migrating geese, waders on the mud flats and sun in the reeds. I liked the sinuous shapes the left-behind creek water made in the tidal mud, with the delicate running patterns of prints from small sea birds; the way the wet mud reflects the blue sky with the brown water trickling through it.
Burnham Overy marsh, low tide. Mari French 2014
My usual stomping and sketching ground is a few miles west at Thornham’s salt marsh area but the Burnham Overy marshes are different, with, depending on the tide, large areas of sand, tidal mud, saltwater lagoon, freshwater drainage channels fringed with silvery reed beds, grass pastureland grazed by flocks of overwintering pink foot and Brent geese.
This wonderful variety can be easily enjoyed (and sketched, there are several nicely positioned benches too) from the 1 1/2 mile path along the sea defences to the sand dunes and beach.
Sketchbook. Burnham Overy marsh, December. Mari French 201
Woven bank supports, Burnham Overy marsh. Mari French 2014
Like much of the Norfolk Coast there is a wide open limitless feel to the landscape and sky here, which inspires me. The light on a clear day is amazing.
Even in bad weather it’s endlessly interesting; I’ve always been intrigued by the decaying evidence of man’s work in the landscape and here the woven willow/hazel bank supports and stone breakwaters supply punctuation marks to the scene. This is clearly going to become an important area of source material for my work on salt marshes.
Woven bank supports, Burnham Overy marsh. Mari French 2014
Reed beds, grazing geese, Burnham Overy marsh. Mari French 2014
Tidal mud, Burnham Overy marsh. Mari French 2014
Burnham Overy marsh, high tide. Mari French 2014
Memory of sunlight 1. Digital photo, Mari French 2014
I love the ethereal effects resulting from natural light pouring through windows onto walls, especially in older buildings.
I photographed these images in my home earlier in April, as the afternoon spring sunlight flickered and filtered through to produce this chiaroscuro play of light and shadow on the wall.
Memory of sunlight 2. Digital photo, Mari French 2014
Straight from my digital camera, they’re not altered or enhanced in any way, apart from a slight cropping on one. If I could produce this kind of image in my painted artworks I’d be one happy bunny.
I’m a bit obsessed with photographing light in this way (you can see more of my images in the photography gallery in the menu above).
Memory of sunlight 3. Digital photo, Mari French 2014
Mari French RI : contemporary artworks 