Travel and an Unexpected Find

Travel inspires creativity simply by opening us up to new experiences and stimuli. On every trip I find myself filling the pages of my A6 sketchbook. I feel that if I haven't drawn, sketched or made marks in a place, then I haven't really seen it, I haven't really looked...

Bringing something home from which to inspire future work is however, not a given. It is instead the result of a chance encounter with something unexpected. The sketches are great to look back on and enjoy as a visual diary. They remind me much more of how I felt about a place than looking at a photo snap. Often, however, that is as far as the inspiration goes.

On this particular trip to the north of Tenerife during the Christmas break. I picked up this unusual piece of tree bark on a walk in the mountains. It straight away inspired my photo of the day  (as I call it) by taking a photograph through it of my cast shadow (see below)

I put the small piece of bark in my bag and brought it back home to the UK where alongside the photograph I have continued to be inspired. It has brought up all kinds of associations with areas of interest such as figures past and present, as part of nature, within hedgerows, liminal spaces etc - endless possibilities in fact from which I am just beginning to make some further enquiries (see below).