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"We’ve had a lot of windy, stormy weather recently. There was so much movement, clouds scudding, spray coming off the back of waves, shrubbery moving - it had to be represented in a loose way, so I put my usual way of painting aside.

I put some loud music on, plenty of paint on the palette, and went mental while holding the image of all of that movement in my head.

I started off with a series of photo references like the one below to give me a sense of the feeling of the day, and then promptly abandoned them :D

I started with the sky, to establish the light, using French Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber and a touch of Cadmium Yellow Medium, and also a touch of Pthalo Blue and Dioxazine Purple in a couple of spots. There’s more Dioxazine Purple and Pthalo Blue in the darker areas and then in the lighter there’s more Cadmium Yellow Medium and Burnt Umber.

I used those darker colours as shadows in the whitewash as well. I mixed up some Forest Green, Dioxazine Purple and added some of the sky colour, and blocked in some of the shrubbery.

I got the darkest sky colour, added some white and French Ultramarine Blue to that, and added some slightly paler colours to the whitewash, before eventually adding white to the highlights.

Because I worked so quickly, the paint was very wet, so there was quite a lot of blurring of colours and mixing of colours on the surface. At this point a lot of the processes I often used were thrown to the wind (sorry, bad pun), and I to'd and fro’d with all the relationships and colours, adding a little more form and structure.

I came back with some paler greens and created the shapes of the bushes, added some Cadmium Yellow Medium to that and then added some highlights. A flash of Pthalo Blue + sky colour through the face of the wave, and some suds trailing up the face, finished off with some spray off the back of the wave, and the first stage was done. Time went fast.

I have an unconscious phobia about too much exposed white canvas, so I went back and re-established the sky, and warmed it up a touch. I played with that warm to cool process a little more to add a bit more depth to the picture. I then started working the greys into the water, and some of the creams into the sky and into the highlights on the lips of the waves, and the foam spraying off the back.

Then I worked some purples into the shadows on the sand dunes, because I wanted to create the impression that the sand dunes in the foreground are in the direct sunlight, and mixed up some Cadmium Yellow Medium and Dioxazine Purple, leaning more towards the yellow to create the highlights on the sand dune, to suggest that there was some quite intense light from the left hitting the sand dunes. I then worked back through all of the foliage with a dry brush, and suggested grasses and the tips of grasses being hit by sunlight, but still leaving it quite grainy and loose.

I then went back and re-established the shrubbery in the foreground. When that was done, I mixed up a series of colours. One to represent highlights of light hitting grasses and leaves, and shadows in the foliage, and with a small brush and gently using the edge of it to suggest the scraggly, broken up nature of the bush. I got some Permanent Alizarin and Cadmium Yellow Medium and strategically put flecks of this colour mix through the grasses and foliage to create some warmth, and made a similar process in the shadows with turquoise to throw a little bit more unexpected colour into the mix.

I wanted to create the impression of dark storm clouds out to sea, and a break in the clouds, and wanted to bring that warmth and light into the foreground, and that ominous cloud bank further out to sea. Perhaps a metaphor ??? ;)

Hope you guys can feel the movement and mood of this piece “The Storm”."