Art and Creativity Journal: Beach Tripping

Last week, we finally got away for a trip to the "big" beach, out on Washington's Pacific coast.

These trips to the Pacific coast matter because the stones there tend to be much more "even" shaped, flat and smooth-surfaced than those we generally have locally. There is also a much greater concentration of basalt there, and that tends to be the best "fine grain" base material for painting.

Although this outing was part of a longer trip, we did get to spend a full day on the beach, and even enjoyed a picnic lunch while out there.

All in all, it was a pretty good trip, although it yielded far fewer larger stones than I had hoped for. It's pretty unpredictable, of course, what the beach looks like at any given time, due to tides and other factors like recent storms and such.

Our findings, somewhat sorted

Although the primary objective is definitely to find more rocks to paint on, I also really enjoy the amazing and wild scenery of Washington's West coast.

There are rocky shoals and outcroppings several miles out, and it is from the gradual erosion of these "sea stacks" that the smooth rocks originate.

But getting back to what we actually found out there there were a goodly amount of smaller paintable stones which I will be happy to have for our baskets at upcoming holiday events.

Most of these are between 1 and 2.5 inches in length

Also exciting was the fact that we found far more pieces of nice polished BC Jade than we have an any previous trips so that was a big plus.

Although not bright green, BC Jade polishes up this smooth and shiny on the beach, without any additional tumbling or oiling.

Jade is extremely smooth and shiny, as found in nature

I also picked up quite a few striped rocks for my otherwise unrelated Wishing Stone project so that kind of works out as a bonus.

Striped rocks

All in all, it was a pretty fruitful trip and I'm glad we went! We don't get to go very often, so I experience the trip as a special treat.

Thank You!

If you enjoy painted rocks, do check out The Hive Rocks Project and help spread the word about Hive, while also being creative!

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2026.06.23 AS-TXT-395/365