This piece took the best part of a summer to build. Capturing a wave in the moment it breaks is one of the hardest things to paint: the water is never still long enough to look at properly, so most of it happens from memory and instinct rather than observation.

I worked the surface with string, water, sponges and inks alongside oil, building up layers and pulling them back again until the spray had the right sense of movement. Bracklesham Bay's waves have a particular energy when the wind gets up, and that momentum was what I was chasing throughout, not just the look of the spray but the force behind it.

There's a lot of texture and depth in the surface that doesn't come across fully in photographs. It's a painting that rewards standing in front of it.

Painting mediums used: Golden, Liquitex & Daler-Rowney