Stage 7; I've finished the background sea on the left side of the picture. Now it's time to work on the foreground.

Stage 6; Here I have begun painting the sea in the background. Getting the colours 'right' is critical at this stage as these will be, broadly, the colours I will carry through the rest of the sea. It's blowiing a gale, the sea is heavy and spray is being whipped up on the crests of the waves.

Stage 5; That's the sky finished, although I'm a bit worried that the light on the horizon is too bright and detracts from the overall composition, so I may tone it down. I'll see how it looks in the morning.

Stage 4; Here I'm painting in the sky - a dark, stormy canopy of cloud with a hint of sunlight on the distant horizon as the tail end of the storm passes through.

Stage 3; I've added more detail to the wave forms, putting in some of the surface ripples that go with high wind. I've also slightly altered the shape of the breaking wave by moving the lower end of the main foaming crest to the right a little. Before, it had seemed to chop the picture in two down the middle.

Stage 2; I've finished blocking in the composition in thin oil paint. Tomorrow I will add a little more structure and detail to the wave forms before starting to apply the paint as a finished layer.

Early stage: In thin oil paint I'm roughing in the wave forms and playing around with the position of the albatross.

New painting - Wandering albatross: Just in the last half an hour I have started blocking in the composition. I painted a small acrylic rough version (to the right of the easel in this view) as a template because this picture is a distillation of a number of different experiences, including the very sobering one of sailing through the centre of a hurricane during the small hours of the morning!
This oil painting will, if everything goes according to plan, be auctioned to raise funds for the RSPB's 'Save the Albatross' campaign.