Peregrine and Ruddy Turnstones

This is, of course, a picture of a wave. The birds add interest and perhaps excitement, but the essential idea is the drama of a powerful wave. Like most people, I am fascinated by moving water. We seem to be able to watch it for hours in a way similar to gazing into a campfire.

Water, however, is visually an incredibly variable feast. As I write these words, I am sitting on our dock watching the reflections in the pond. They break up the image in the manner of a gently shimmering impressionist painting. The other end of the scale is the fantastic ocean waves. The most powerful I have seen were in the Drake Passage between Cape Horn and Antarctica. But the wave in this picture comes a close second. It was on the Atlantic seaboard as a hurricane passed by just off the coast. Big waves crashing on a beach, of course, suck tons of sand out to sea and throw it back at the shore.

I feel that the brown colour adds to the realism and sets the mood. I chose not to use a clear turquoise Hawaiian surfing wave. The action of the painting is a whiplash movement from right to left. A wave unleashes itself in a chain reaction like a spark along a dynamite fuse. The left end is disintegrating and exploding in foam. The top of this spray is whipped off by the buffeting wind.

A peregrine falcon beating his way along the shore has disturbed a flock of ruddy turnstones. I painted them exploding into the wind off the left of the picture to emphasize the thrust of the waves. Ruddy turnstones are one of the most widespread shorebirds in the world. They are a bit small to interest a peregrine, but he would take one if it was easy to catch.