Finished Painting: Finally I've finished working on the water, and have added some legs to the bird! The pale area of water at the bottom of the painting is reflected sky and I had a lot of trouble making this look convincing. I had to add reflections of a few small, winter trees and the odd fence-post to help explain what was going on down there. In places, in the dark area of water, the sand just shows through as a speckled texture, where individual grains of sand are themselves reflecting bits of sky. This too posed problems and I spent a long time trying to get that looking right. All in all a bit of a nightmare, but hopefully it will look better when it's varnished.

I liked the the very flat light of this overcast winter's day as it helped accentuate the bold, almost abstract shapes of the boulders and the water, without a lot of shadows complicating the scene.

Stage 10: I've started bringing the water to a reasonable level of 'finish'. This is the most difficult area. There are a lot of subtle, intermingling patterns at play: most of the water is a mid-brown colour, which is a reflection of the brown winter vegetation on the escarpment that rises up at the back of the beach (out of the picture); as the water running over the sand is only very shallow (a matter of millimetres in places) it is also possible to discern something of the texture and patterns of the sand beneath the water surface.

Stage 9: I've painted most of the bird, although I was having trouble putting the legs in the right place so I'll come back to that later! Having not looked at the picture for a few days (yes - artists are allowed time off too!) I can see a few things wrong with the shape of the bird, in particular the head, so now with the benefit of a 'fresh eye' I can tweak the shape slightly. I shall move on to the water first though.