Stormy History

This image has ended up as a pastel.
It didn't start life that way.
First of all it was one of a series of photos - taken on a very stormy winter morning on a beach just south of Seaham, called The Blast.
We think it got its name because before the pits arrived to defile the place there were a number of Blast furnaces on the cliff tops.
Long story short - for over a hundred years the coal mine that replaced the blast furnaces shoved its waste over the cliffs and into the sea - making our coast famous for its black beaches.
Nice eh?
The sand is slowly returning to a sand-like colour, but they say it will take another fifty years :-(
I made a watercolour painting from the photos - picking the best combination of waves hurling themselves onto the beach that I could... but somehow the blue never looked right - too pretty - so it stood at the back of the shedio all last year... forlorn and abandoned... but somehow I didn't want to throw it away.
Despite it being in disgrace it still made me smile... I once had to swim around this point because I got cut off by the tide... luckily the sea was a lot calmer at the time and my friend was able to clamber over those rocks with the camera gear while I swam for it.
Very embarrassing but the fishermen were highly amused (and entertained I suspect by my sodden t shirt )
So - this week I took matters in hand and attacked it - yes, literally with some pastels.
I worked ferociously for about an hour and a half... and this is the result...
I've looked at it so long I can't decide what I think of it anymore!
It's on a full sized sheet (75 x 55cms) and wrongly on Arches Hot Press paper - that means there's hardly any tooth to hold onto the pastel and it will require copious amounts of fixative to keep it in place.... but I read an interesting article the other day about a chap who, on finishing his pastels- approaches them wh a steam iron - so that the steam actually dissolves the pastel and it forms a layer of consolidated pigment.... wonder if I'm brave enough to risk it?
Oh wait - I threw away my iron when I left the marital home and vowed never to use one again....
erm... Phoeb.... :-)