Capturing the Spirit of the Sea
“There’s something about the sea that doesn’t just reflect light, it reflects feeling.”
Standing at the water’s edge, brush in hand, I never quite know what I’m going to find.
Sometimes the sea lies still, gentle and luminous, like a moment of calm in a busy world. Other times it churns and shifts, full of wild energy - wind tearing at the surface, waves curling with a quiet kind of fury. I’ve come to realise that it’s these changes, this unpredictability, that speak to me most.
Because the sea doesn’t stay the same. And neither do we.
“Power”
Painting change, not just place
People often ask what first drew me to painting the coast. I think it’s that the sea never presents itself in quite the same way twice. It’s not a fixed subject, it’s a moving, living thing. And like human emotions, it can’t always be pinned down.
In painting, I don’t try to tame the sea. I try to respond to it. To let the mood of that particular day - whether peaceful or powerful - come through in the marks I make. Sometimes that means a sudden flurry of charcoal lines to catch the movement of a wave. Other times it means building soft, delicate layers to reflect light breaking across the surface.
The sea asks you to pay attention. To stay present.
And it rewards that attention with beauty you can’t plan for.
A personal tide
My own story as an artist has its own turning points.
Years ago, it was along the Welsh coast that I first began to see a different path for myself - a life in art, encouraged by someone who truly believed in me.
That memory is always close when I paint the sea. It reminds me how deeply place and feeling are connected. Every headland, every tide pool holds something more than geography, it holds emotion. Loss. Hope. Change. Peace.
And I know from speaking with collectors that this is why coastal paintings often find a place in people’s homes. Not just because they love the sea, but because they see something of themselves in it.
Stillness and storm
In my Coastal and Elemental collections, I’ve tried to capture the different moods of the coastline - from quiet estuaries to vast open waters.
Some pieces are intimate - the view from a path, or a quiet moment watching waves return again and again. Others are more expansive, opening into wild skies and weather. But in each, I’ve tried to hold onto a sense of stillness, even when the water is moving.
Because often, in painting the sea, I find the calm I didn’t know I needed.