Sketching Sea Stacks at Brady’s Beach
Visiting Bamfield and the iconic Brady’s Beach was a fantastic source of inspiration and led to some fantastic sketching adventures- and some new watercolour paintings.
Bamfield is not the easiest place to reach, but is absolutely worth the effort. For us, access meant sailing round Cape Beale- a stretch of coast that forms part of the ‘Graveyard of the Pacific’. We had a good weather window and the trip was safe, though conflicting swells from the northwest and southwest made the waters muddled and uncomfortable. Not much art happened as we lumbered our way through, and after days of gales there wasn’t even enough wind to raise the sails and stabilize things.
Anchoring in Port Desire came as a relief. It’s a calm, sheltered spot, perfect for painting! There’s also no phone signal- so no distractions! I began working on some watercolours, and took the dinghy out to the entrance to Bamfield inlet each day so I could check email.
We also used the dinghy to get to West Bamfield. There’s a great little store there, a post office and a trail to the gorgeous Brady’s Beach. This iconic beach is divided up by magnificent sea stacks, topped with wind-swept trees, red-tipped salad bushes and coastal strawberries. I made the pilgrimage there each day, usually accompanied by Jim on his bike. The colours shifted with the weather and the time of day and the tides and waves constantly altered the scene. It was another place where I could have painted for weeks!
The weather forecast was for a string of gales, but after a few days with nothing more than a stiff breeze, we decided to make the three mile sail to the Deer Group. We tucked in a sheltered anchorage between Diana and Haines Islands. Protected by the shores and a series of reefs watched the plumes of sea foam thrown up when the swells from the Pacific met the shore. The rumble of the surf created a backing track to the eagles and kingfishers who lived amongst the islands.
It was a wonderful place to explore in the dinghy, full of kelp forests and rocky islands with sea caves. On the way back to Port Desire, Jim helmed whilst I sketched thumbnails of rocks and forests. A black bear foraging along the shore at low tide was a wonderful model- and Island Prism was a safe spot to perch as I sketched!
Some of my Brady’s Beach sketches are inspiring the first paintings in my upcoming watercolour series. I’m releasing them on July 2nd- make sure you’re on the Collector’s List to get first dibs (you can join using the form at the bottom of this page)!
