19th: Umbra – Ulster

Umbra is a stunningly different habitat to anything we’ve seen so far, which possibly qualifies it to be included in any exhibition for that reason alone. It sits right on the Northern Irish coastline that has cliffs (apparently where peregrines roam) at its back and open ocean to it’s front. It’s a mini mountain range of vegetation covered sand dunes, which at this time of year is literally covered in thousands of orchids.

This wasn’t a trip where we were seeing fauna everywhere, we did spot a few small birds, but it was all about the flora here. We spotted at least 2 different species of orchid, plus numerous other gorgeous little plants. Not that we knew the names of them at the time, but I’ll have to do my research on those! This left me with a dilemma, the place was a mixture of wide-open sweeping landscapes and the minute beauty of flower petals.

If I do try to do a piece from this visit, I guess the question will be whether I should try to combine them, go for one or the other, or complete 2 separate artworks? At this stage, I’m quite tempted to go for some sort of experimental piece that overlaps both elements in more of a design, rather than a traditional landscape, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens, if anything.