If you have seen my art work before (and if you haven’t.. yes you.. points finger… go to the Illustrations page above check out my instagram and follow me) you would have notice that I do not paint backgrounds. This is because I am terrible at persepcitve, its always stressed me out and since I have enough stress in my life anyway I have always just decided to leave them out. But I have reached the point now where I dont want my artwork to be monotonous for you or me, and if I am honest I would love to be able to paint landscapes and backgrounds. Getting better will only come with practice, practice, practice… So here is my first attempt, a kelp forest!
I chose a kelp forest because I haven’t actually ever seen one, so I would need to be extra focussed when looking at reference images. I started small because its easier to not focus on the details and just went for it. I deliberatly kept animals out because I would instantly just spend all my time drawing that. But just because my painitng is lacking creatures please do no think kelp forests a barren landscapes only filled with seaweed, its quite the opposite!
Kelp forests cause an incredibly rich communtiy to form. Kelp is the base level of the food chain to support everything for urchins to otters, a few animals will even eat the kelp itself such as the blue-rayed limpet or seahare! The holdfast (like the seaweed equivilent of plant roots) is home to hundreds of marine invertbrate species, or acts as a hide away for small fish, octupuses (octopi? whats the plural?).. you name it! Holdfasta are so complex and intertwinded that pretty much anything that fits in in can find a comfy place to hunker down if they look hard enough.
You have probably seen all the blue planet documetarites about the amazingly cute otters off the coast of places like California that wrap themselves up kelp and fall asleep (awwww). These kelp beds are mightly impressive and are home to the much larger growing kelp species (Macrocystis spp.) that can grow 60 cm a day! (I wish… I haven’t grown that much since I was 5). But dont think that if you here in the UK you won’t be able to see these species because we have kelp beds right on our doorstep!
Many places around the UK have kelp beds in the lower shore (shorter growing kelp species, but impressive kelp beds none the less). If your lucky enough to visit places like shetland or Isle of Mull you can even see sea otters too! If your careful and wander down to the rocky shore on a very low tide you might get to witness kelp beds that are intertidal and can have a nose at all the wonderful and beautiful species in their holdfasts.
Hopefully I will get better at these landscapes and perspective, I can begin to include more animals in the Kelp forest I draw, so I get the opperunity to example and visualise in more detail about all the awesome creatures that inhabit kelp forests.
Thanks for reading, and dont forget to watch my Youtube video on how I painted this landscpe. Please let me know what you think and send any background painting pointers my way!
MarineMumbles x
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