Finished painting; This painting will form part of the 'Artsist for Albatrosses' exhibition in October - see my South Georgia page for details.

Detail: A detail of the foreground pebbles and sand. I've used an old toothbrush to spatter paint on to the sand to give texture. I started by spattering on a dark colour and followed this with a light colour, the idea being that the light 'droplets' will randomly sit on top of the darker ones to give the impression of grains of sand. Had I wanted to produce a pitted-looking surface I would have applied the light spatters first followed by the dark. I then pick out just a few of the more obvious blobs of light or dark and emphasise and refine them with the tip of a palette knife, which enhances the overall effect.

Detail; I'm working on the wet sand. The foreground pebbles are complete. Tone and colour are particularly critical here if I am to achieve the desired effect of wet sand so I have spent quite a bit of time mixing colours and trying them out on the painting, making minor adjustments along the way until I was happy with the colour range.

Stage 6; The penguin is complete and I've started working on the sand in the foreground. I've also painted in the shadow cast by the nearest block of ice - the semi-transparent nature of the ice allows light to shine through it and it acts a little bit like a lens, focussing light in patches on to the sand within the area of shadow.