pebbles and shells, quick sketches and doodles in biro

Quick sketches of pebbles and shells all done with a Parker biro in a moleskine sketchbook, Vivien Blackburn

The first one is, I think, flint* - are the holes softer elements that have eroded away in the sea? it looks as though something has been eating it! like a potato attacked by slugs with smooth even tunnels.


And a very bad sketch of a mussel shell covered in barnacles and with the flat pattern ?where one had been. Another piece of ?shell ?coral was delaminating and was full of holes, again as though something had bored through it - all over. Curious.

and another not wonderful sketch of a shell - I find it quite hard to give this flattish shape of shell any sense of 3D - especially when drawn in biro - why didn't I go and get a pencil?

*further inland, near Thetford, are the Neolithic flint mines of Grimes Graves. I visited them as a teenager with my school (Thetford Grammar School - we lived in Norfolk at the time) and crawled through the very small passages - I couldn't do that now! cowardice and sizewise!

hmmm these sketches show just how dreadfully illegible my writing can be!

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