First Night Design | Looking for Fossils #Art

Looking for Fossils © Sarah Vernon at Redbubble

I combined two vintage beach photos from Flickr which I melted together so that the beach was no longer empty but contained two boys, one looking at the camera. There were originally three of them but the third lad didn’t quite work on the beach of the other photo. I adjusted him so that he was ankle-deep looking out to sea but I couldn’t make it look real so I drowned him! I favourited these photos on Flickr in the sure hope that I could go back to my ‘favourites’ and retrieve the web addresses to give credit. But they’re not there and I’ve searched high and low on Google Images to no avail. Frustrating. [Update 23-08-015 – discovered I sourced these images from Rijkstudio!]

I used one of my own backgrounds and combined a texture from Kerstin Frank and from 2 Lil’ Owls. You know what it’s like — you’re about to paste the details of each image in ‘file info’ and then somebody interrupts and it never gets done. I have no idea which of these backgrounds I used. Irritating, to say the least.

Talking of fossils, I recently finished reading Tracy Chevalier’s novel, Remarkable Creatures. If you’ve ever read Chevalier’s work, you will know that she writes about real people with extraordinary skill so that you feel you know something of what they were actually like.  Remarkable Creatures is the tale of two female fossil hunters, Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpott, in the early 19th century when women’s status was not what it has become. Fossil hunters? Female? Whatever next! But their discovery of the first dinosaur was to change everything, not that they received any credit at the start.

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

If you thought fossils were boring, think again:

‘On a windswept English beach in the early 19th century, two women make discoveries that change the world. And in so doing find friendship, pride — and trouble.’ (Blurb)
Chevalier recently stated that making fossils sexy was one of her chief aims in writing Remarkable Creatures. She has certainly succeeded.’ Daily Telegraph
‘Historical figures have rarely been so cleverly used… A stunning story.’ The Guardian

I recommend the book highly. And if you want to buy the book, click the image above or its title and I’ll earn commission — every little helps! By the way, the same applies to any books or films I add to my posts.

Buy a framed print of Looking for Fossils © Sarah Vernon at my Crated gallery

Available at the following galleries:
Redbubble
Crated
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America
Fine Art England
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!