Holkham Beach

A lovely sketch Thea and a great way to record your holiday, much more interesting than a written diary. Love your rusty old boat painting too!

Thanks for the info Thea. I have wondered where they managed to film such a vast stretch of water, and now I know! Lovely sketch work.

Another lovely sketch.

I'm enjoying seeing your holiday sketches Thea. Very nice one too!

Always tricky to decide how to convey such expanses: wide sands or expenses of sea...? You've gone for the former, but I'm not sure we can imagine just how much sand is yet to come beyond the dunes. Perhaps a smaller figure receding would have added that dimension, and the sky paling slightly towards the horizon? And just to put the boot in firmly to the knee, the twitch grass is perhaps slightly too regimented? Offset this then against the fact that this could ONLY have been painted in situ, probably in appalling conditions, and blemishes fade into insignificance!

Excuse me Thea I do some birding in this area but I am not a twitcher. There is a difference. However you have captured the beach and it's atmosphere accuretely so I will excuse you this time.

Gosh, I am sorry Derek - I didn't realise there was a difference. Please forgive my ignorance and I stand corrected.

Lovely fresh sketch Thea.

Thank you very much Christine, Debs, Dawn, Louise, Kim, Derek, and Val for all your lovely comments. Kim, the sea is miles out and from where I was standing you can only see a small strip of it. The beach is vast and I have only shown a small part of it where the path in front of the main dunes starts to open up in the beach proper. I have to confess as being rubbish at foliage, grasses, etc so it is no wonder my grasses leave a bit to be desired. I had to complete the sketch quickly as Milly (our dog) was heading at speed towards the sea and Roger was in hot pursuit. I had about 15 minutes before I had to sprint after them. The beach is the most amazing I have ever been on, so anyone who hasn't visited the North Norfolk coast and this particular beach might like to take a trip there some day - you won't be disappointed.

you have captured the vast expansiveness of this beach area perfectly here, we just know from looking at this that just over those dunes will be perfect flatness which sounds ideal for running dogs on!

My dogs all loved this beach and after we lost one of our dogs just over three years ago, we lost heart with the holiday house we had over on the Norfolk coast. I just couldn't bear to see Milly on the beach on her own without our other dog. So we sold the house and this was the first time we had gone back. Luckily time heals and we really enjoyed seeing Milly dashing around and swimming in the sea. Thank you for your lovely comments about the sketch.

Truly atmospheric, Thea. Bright and delightful.