Oystercatchers at Moulin Huet Bay

Another excellent addition to your wonderful gallery

What a wonderful painting Sara. The sky and sea are so convincing and the shallow water on the beach is real enough to paddle in. Your work is inspiring.

Walked along the beach some months ago with friends (at Fort Victoria, Isle of Wight, where my late grandfather worked) and their dogs put up the oystercatchers - so this is a very resonant scene for me. I've tried painting them, but in movement they just don't stay still enough to capture their flight pattern: always a problem when painting birds! Did you catch these with a camera, I wonder? Or is your eyesight better than mine? (and THAT wouldn't be hard!) - they appeared to me as a blur of black and white, with streaks of red. Like the distant cliffs in this, and the rolling, incoming water with its deep greens and slate-like blues. This would work well as a really big painting, in which you could lighten the sky even more towards the horizon - I think it would illuminate the whole painting and provide an even more convincing scene: how about going for it, in a really big way?

Such an evocative painting - I can hear the sea - great piece

Thanks guys for all your great comments. Robert - I tend to use reference from photos for painting the birds and I have a friend who is an excellent bird photographer who allows me to use his photos for reference too. Would love to try this as a large painting but sadly running a business leaves me with very little time to paint these days! Maybe one day, glad you liked it though.

First decent painting for pages, convincing sea and excellent beach. I regularly see oyster catchers when I go fishing ..........on the river Ure nr Masham about 80 miles from the sea

Thanks John for your lovely comment, its so nice when a painting means something to someone and this one seems to be bringing back memories for many.