Rockpooling
An ode to rockpooling and the hours spent scouring the shore for shy crabs and the best bits of seaweed they might have to offer you. The design was inspired by a framed, dried seaweed collection I found in a thrift store - it now lives in my bathroom!
Design Process
The story of this design begins in a little thrift store in Santa Cruz where I found two lovely picture frames with a hand-labelled collection of dried seaweeds. Clearly a painstakingly made pair, I decided that work and care should be celebrated in a colourful pattern!
I began by sketching out a rough tile, ready to fit into a half-drop repeat pattern. The tile was then drawn to scale, and lightly traced ready for paint. I used acrylic gouache on watercolour paper to render the seaweed, followed by the crabs.
Once the pattern tile was pretty much painted, I scanned the painting, cleaned up the lines and colours, tweaked a few of the crabs and seaweed to balance the pattern, and added details in Procreate. I love how it turned out SO MUCH!
