Reflection
60 cm x 30 cm acrylic on stretched canvas
$350
This painting is from a photo I took of Junko down at the beach. I wanted to focus on getting the sand and shallow water right in this one, as its such a typical Kapiti Coast feature - the very shallow water and the way it ripples and cascades across the sand. The original photo had less colour in the water (see below), so I took some liberties with my colours. Also, Junko looks like a child, that wasn't intentional, that's just because I'm not great at figures (yet!)
Junko looks more proportionally correct in the photo :-)
Tranquility
70 cm x 40 cm acrylic on stretched canvas
$250
This painting was inspired by a Waitangi weekend swim down at the local beach. I love the green waves and the way the sunlight glints off them - this was what I wanted to capture with Tranquility.
Te Waiāriki
("An Essence of His Grace")
90 cm x 30 cm acrylic on stretched canvas
Unavailable
This is from a photo I took while swimming at Raumati Beach. The word "raumati" is from te reo Māori and it translates to "summer" in English. This is what summer looks like to me.
I put this on Facebook and asked if anyone had a name, and there were dozens of suggestions, all of which were awesome. There was only one name I couldn't understand, which was Te Waiāriki. I looked it up online but couldn't find a literal translation in English. So I messaged the person who made the suggestion and I got this thoughtful answer:
Hi, Māori words don't have a literal meaning as such, it depends on the context you use the word. So here's a brief summary why I think this piece portrays Te Waiāriki:
- Wai could simply mean water or an essence of something.
- Ariki means either chiefly/godly/or even a title given to someone with high regard.
So, my interpretation of Te Waiāriki in a simple translation is, "An essence of his grace."
FYI: Te Waiāriki is my daughter's name. And this is such a beautiful piece.
I was really touched by this suggestion and explanation, and especially that it was also the name of her baby daughter, so I decided to gift it to her little girl. Hopefully Te Waiāriki will enjoy looking at this painting as she gets older and will like that it is named after her :-)
Lynne's Wave
28cm x 20cm acrylic on canvas board
Unavailable
This painting was done as a gift for a friend to take to Japan and give to her 1-year old granddaughter, who loves the beach. This will be the first painting of mine to have a home in Japan.
Dusky Shore
28cm x 20cm acrylic on canvas board
Unavailable
This is my version of a Joaquin Sorolla painting, which I love. Sorolla was a Spanish painter in the late 19th-century. He excelled in the painting of portraits and landscapes. According to Wikipedia "His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the bright sunlight of Spain and sunlit water."
Check out his paintings if you can (or here's a few below) - the way he paints reflected light is incredible!
Seatoun Southerly
150 cm x 100 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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This was a commission for someone who wanted a Seatoun seascape, showing land in the background. The hills are the Eastern Hills, between Eastbourne and the Pencarrow Lighthouse. The rock in the foreground is Steeple Rock. The time of day is early evening, and the swell is coming in from the harbour heads.
Morning Light
150 cm x 100 cm acrylic on stretched canvas
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This was a commission for an awesome local business that needed something to go on the wall in their waiting area. Their branding is teal and bright green, and they have Kapiti Island as the main feature in their logo. So this was painted to fit within their space and with their look and feel.
Sylvie's Wave
100 cm x 76 cm acrylic on stretched canvas
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This was a commission for a customer who wanted the view from Waikanae Beach, using a soft bluey-grey palette. I love watching the foamy waves overlap each other and making patterns when I walk on the beach.
Green Breaker
100 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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This wave came about quite unexpectedly and was different from my usual blues and sunny skies. It is looking out towards Kapiti from the rock pools on the coast near Pukerua Bay.
Calm Morning Breaker
76 cm x 38 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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This was another commission for someone to take overseas as a gift. I love those calm mornings where it's hard to tell where the water stops and the sky starts. This wave has quite a peaceful and calming feeling, it was nice to paint.
Eastbourne Beach
120 cm x 120 cm, acrylic on hardboard
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Growing up in Eastbourne, I spent a lot of time at the beach. It was also so nice to raise our son there too for the first part of his life. This view is from Bishop Park looking back towards Petone and the Hutt Valley. The darker piece of land to the right is Point Howard. I loved the weird cloud bank on this particular evening. Just out of frame is my wife and son. They didn't make it in because I'm not good at painting people just yet :-)
The Wave
This was the first big wave I painted, so it's a special one to me. It has recently become available through Josef Kieninger Gallery. Since painting this, I've tried lots of other styles of waves, and various perspectives, but for some reason this simple straight line kind of wave is what I keep coming back to.
Pekapeka Surf
100 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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This is Pekapeka beach, on the Kapiti Coast. I wanted a nice rolling wave with some light behind it, some sea foam in the foreground and, of course, the iconic Kapiti Island in the background :-)
Cathedral Cove
55 cm x 55 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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I used to love visiting Cathedral Cove for a day trip over the summer holidays - you had to walk for miles down a little dirt track to get there in those days, and there was one long-drop toilet for the hundreds of people that would pack onto the beach.
Blue Wave
100 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
$350
This wave turned out pretty bright and luminous (looks better under direct light!). I like the contrast of light and shadow in this one.
Morning Wave
75 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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This wave ended up having on quite a peaceful serene feeling, and the purple shades in the shadow really pop. It has a kind of early morning bright sunlight feel, so it's called "Morning Wave".
Green-eyed Monster
This wave started out with a lime green base and kind of grew around the eye in the middle of the canvas. The shadow is a metallic blue mixed with white. Bright light really illuminates this painting nicely.
Stormy Sea
This is the darkest and stormiest seascape I've done so far. At the time it was also the biggest painting I had attempted, at 1.6m long. I usually paint sunnier scenes, but I like the darker moodiness that this one seems to evoke.
Painting shown to almost the correct scale
Waikanae Beach Walk
100 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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This was a commission piece for a family who live at Waikanae Beach. The brief was to keep it light and sunny, but still have some decent swell, and, of course, have Kapiti Island in the background. I wanted to capture the beauty of walking on the coast on a fine weekend morning.
Midnight Wave
100 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
$250
This wave is a bit more abstract than I usually paint. It kind of just rolled in late one Saturday night and I wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out. It had an eerie kind of glow, like the moon has got in behind it. I liked the foaminess of it, and the gentle way it is coming in. I call it Midnight Wave.
Serenity
150 cm x 100 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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This was a commission for a couple in Raumati. The owner had grown up at Paekakariki Beach and was hoping for something bright and sunny with those kind of luminous rolling waves you get in the summer. It is a big painting, at 1.5 wide and 1 m tall. While I was painting it I kept wanting to jump in and float around in the calm bit. It gave me a feeling of peace, so I called it "Serenity"
Radiance
150 cm x 100 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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With this one I was trying to get the breaking wave to look really luminous. It's a little less realistic than I usually try to paint, but I liked the energy it ended up having. It is also a big one,at 1.5 metres wide and a metre high. This was actually bought my mum, who is my most brutally honest and constructive critic, so I figure it can't be too bad...
Sunday Breaker
65 cm x 30 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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This is a tough, scrappy little wave that packs a bit of punch. It's a choppy, windy day and I've tried to capture it with some bright light behind it just as it's breaking. This is smaller than I usually paint, but it has a big presence when it's up on the wall. It's also very glossy and shiny. I painted it on a Sunday morning, so it is my "Sunday Breaker."
Houghton Bay Breaker
65 cm x 30 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas
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I took my son Yoshi out for a day in town and, after eating at Wellington's filthiest Burger King, we ended up out at Wellington's South Coast. I walked on the beach at Houghton Bay taking photos of the waves, and he sat in the car playing on his phone. I painted this wave to help me cherish this quality father-and-son moment.
Midday Surf
160 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on canvas
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"It's arrived! And I love it, love it, love it! Even better than the photo. Going to be very proud to hang a piece of your work in our house. Thank you! Whoop whoop!" :-)
I painted this very long canvas (1.6 m) on a cold rainy Saturday morning in my garage. I like having the door up and hearing the rain falling while I paint, it's kind of soothing. This wave ended up with a lovely owner in Auckland - it's always so great to know a painting has found a good home (and even better to know it was delivered in one piece).
Beach Walk
100cm x 85, acrylic on canvas
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This is an imagined beachscape that I want to walk along. While I was painting it I was wondering what I would find when I reached the distant dunes. Probably just more dunes...
Beach Walk is hanging in Wellington's coolest hair salon, Lawrenique. If you get a hair cut there, you can see it close up, it's got lots of texture and shiny bits.
Raumati Beach Walk
100cm x 85cm, acrylic on canvas
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Last summer holidays I decided to get myself trim and fit by walking from Paraparaumu Beach to Raumati Beach every morning, barefoot, toes in the water the whole way. This is the view of Kapiti Island on the way back. What you can't see is the coffee and almond croissant I'm holding as I walk. This painting is now hanging in a house in London.
Twilight Paddle
28 cm x 20 cm, acrylic on canvas board
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A few years ago I snapped a picture of Yoshi wading out into the shallow water at Paraparaumu Beach under a beautiful pink sky. I loved the photo, but never ever thought of painting it, because back then I didn't paint at all. After I started painting, and I came across this picture, I knew I had to try it. I can't draw or paint people (yet), so he looks like a stick figure, but the water came out okay!
Olsson's Ocean
28 cm x 20 cm, acrylic on canvas board,
Not for sale
Albert Julius Olsson (1864–1942) was a British maritime artist, and I love his paintings. So much so, I wanted to try copying one of them. And Olsson's Ocean was the result. I'm not hugely into copying paintings, but it's good for practice sometimes! No need to compare mine with his (below). I think he wins this round for sure.
This is the original painting by Olsson, which is stunning and beautiful. His work is well worth checking out. It has been said of Olsson, "He was a passionate sailor. His deep knowledge of the sea, the way it moved and rolled, the way the light fell and the way spume spread and colours danced, allowed him to paint it with great skill."
Saturday Surf
28 cm x 20 cm, acrylic on canvas board
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Sometimes it's hard to think of names for waves, so this one was named after the day it was painted on. But I think it also has that Saturday kind of feeling, the kind of day you want to hang at the beach and not worry about the time or anywhere else you need to be.
An artist friend bought this painting and got it framed, which I thought was awesome. It was just a thin A4-sized canvas board to begin with, but framing it really finished it off nicely. Cheers Simon!
White Water
The undercoat for this painting was a light purple, and it really shows through under the white foam, giving it a soft, gooey marshmallow type of look. I love seafoam. I like how you get that moment when you hear the foam quietly hissing and fizzing and spitting in between the loud crash of waves. I feel like jumping into this painting and feeling that foam around my feet.
Choppy
50 cm x 25 cm, acrylic on canvas
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A great thing about this painting is what the new owner told me after purchasing it. He happens to be one of the most talented and gifted artists I know, which in itself was awesome. But he told me that he hadn't painted in a long time, and hadn't felt the motivation to paint, but this wave had inspired him to get back into it. I was really touched by that, and I'm so glad it's now a part of his home.
Rolling Wave
I can't pinpoint exactly why, but this rolling wave is one of my favourites. It's not a huge flash canvas, and it rolled in quite discreetly as the fourth painting of a six-wave series, but for some reason it seems to stand out to me. If you agree, you could buy it - otherwise I might need to...
Stormy Seascape
100 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on canvas
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Beaches can be the most beautiful and amazing places to be in rough weather. This was one of my earliest seascapes and still my greyest and roughest, but I plan to do more stormy ones in the future.
ML's Wave
100 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on canvas with gloss finish
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"Painting arrived and we are thrilled, thanks!"
This is Meryl-Lynn's wave, and it will always remind me of her.
Wave III
100 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on canvas with gloss finish
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"The paintings arrived this morning!! They had travelled well [to Switzerland] and they’re up in my walls and looking great! I love them!! So nice to see them ‘in the flesh’ and see the layers & structure."
This was my first wave to travel overseas. It currently resides in Switzerland, and has since been joined by three smaller wave paintings. Thanks Leo, you are leading in the collection stakes!
Waves
100 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on canvas with gloss finish
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This was one of my first wave paintings! It now lives with a lovely family in Eastbourne. I love that translucent green colour you see in the waves' tips, it always feels nice to paint those parts.
Golden Sunset
75 cm x 50 cm, acrylic on canvas with gold paint and gloss finish
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"The painting has arrived safe and well. It is gorgeous! You have a wonderful skill."
This was a painting of a photo I took on Paraparaumu Beach one night. The sky was an incredible golden colour and the photo looked like a Turner painting.
My painting didn't look much like a Turner painting :-)
Pink Sky at Night
This was inspired by another stunning Kapiti sunset where the water took on a beautiful dark blue/black colour.
Sparkly Sea
25cm x 55cm, acrylic on canvas
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This was a study of waves close up, with the aim of capturing that awesome sparkly glint that choppy waves get on a bright, sunny day.
Choppy Sea
100cm x 70cm, acrylic on canvas
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This painting is hanging on the wall at Elite Muscle Therapy in Wellington. Kaz is an amazing healer, so if you need any physiotherapy, and want to check out this painting, get in touch with Kaz!
Beach Path
55cm x 45cm, acrylic on canvas
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In the summer I like to walk on the beach every morning. I love getting to the start of this sandy track that leads down to the water. This was one of the first paintings I did.
Shoreline
90cm x 60cm, acrylic on canvas
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This was one of the very first paintings I posted on social media and I was surprised by the response. People were so positive and kind, and that encouraged me to start sharing more. So this painting is special to me.
Bee at Sea
100cm x 70cm, acrylic on canvas
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This was the first time I tried to paint a human being, and it happens to be my wife, Junko (Bee). It is based on a photograph taken on a summer's day down at Paraparaumu Beach.
Black Tide
70cm x 55cm, acrylic on canvas with gloss finish
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This was another very early painting of Kapiti Island at sunset. The water looked so black against the pink sky. The painted water has little glass beads in it that catch the light at certain times.
Want to know more?
If you would like to get in touch about any of the above works, please drop me a line and I'll get back to you :-)