Offshore, Lindisfarne is the latest in a series of modern seascape oil paintings I've created this year.

I've used the sea, sandy beach and fantastic open skies at Ross in Northumberland as inspiration. The wonderful interplay of movements in the sea and sky over the sandy beach are explored in this series of oil paintings.

Offshore, Lindisfarne expresses the sense of light and movement on an sunny, cloudy day. The light catching the waves and the water at different depths. The sunlight warming the colours in the sea, bringing out every rich sea blue and turquoise as well as whitening the sands. The dense clouds in the sky, their unique patterns and shapes lightened by the sun.

I also wanted to show the natural movements of the seascape. The gentle waves breaking over undulating sands, distant tidal movements, the transition between sea and sky and the dynamic of ever-changing windswept clouds.

The painting uses the full spectrum of marks, from two and a half centimetre flat brushes through to painting knife and rag. I started painting with a traditional foundation of earth colour applied with a brush and rubbed into the oil primed linen with a cloth. You can still see some of this layer as orange reds in the painting. Then starts the build up of layers of colour and working lighter colours in with them. Building up a cohesive, unified image with rich colour.

In this artwork, I've used a whole tube of genuine Cerulean blue by Williamsburg, an opaque mid blue and added cobalt turquoise for the sea greens. Cooler blues were made by the addition of ultramarine to the mix. Napthol red and cadmium yellow light were also used along with Michael Harding's lead white alternative and titanium white. I also use his excellent painting medium which adds flow to the paint.

Published May 2017