The Family, East Preston Beach
Inspiration for the beach painting: Summer 2025 was warm and gentle, summer days flowed one into the other for weeks. Long days in the garden, short trips in our old van with new visits to the north shores of the UK that were beautiful and surprising.
I moved from the West country to the south coast when I was 12, coming from a small town which was rural to the busy city of Brighton was a big change. The sea didn't really have much impact for many years, it was the cold English channel.
It was in lockdown however that I started to sea swim and have been doing this ever since. Whilst on our beach on a glorious sunny day I spotted this family group not far from where we were situated and it was their fantastic colourful towels that drew my attention.
Some days just feel so serene and full of happiness
The family were enjoying the days sunshine; getting dressed, drying off and standing around chatting and this reminded me of my family and our times together swimming. Times where sand got into everything and trying to get warm and shivering when we had stayed too long in the water, hungry for sandwiches and ice creams. Mostly the days were cool and cloudy and very often we would be at our lido where we spent a lot of our summer holidays.
Happiness bottled up into a day and then remembered in a painting
I wanted this painting to give the figures a feeling of connection and bonding through colour and pattern. The beach naturally evolved with warm colours connecting them together and the whites gave me a feeling of movement that connected them all even more.
This painting flowed quickly and naturally, the colours and warmth stayed with me and I kept thinking about how I would like to paint this memory. It has been one of those paintings that I just had to paint before it dissolved away or was taken over by new inspirations and another season....
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2025