Still Summer at Mawgan Porth

September may have arrived, but today at Mawgan Porth, Cornwall, summer was definitely still showing.

I sat amongst the rocks looking across the beach, with the little stream winding its way over the sand towards the sea. The sunshine was warm, the water gentle and the wet sand was catching soft blues, lilacs and reflections from the sky.

There was a wonderful stillness about it. Summer seemed to have slowed down rather than disappeared.

That was what I wanted to capture in this painting. Not simply a picture of Mawgan Porth, but the feeling of being there today... gentle, calm, sunny and serene.

Painting en plein air means responding to what is actually happening in front of me. Light shifts, the tide changes and water continually finds a different path across the sand. As an artist, it is that changing relationship between light, colour, water and landscape that makes painting outdoors in Cornwall so fascinating.

The stream became particularly important in this artwork. It leads through the foreground, catching fragments of blue from the sky before winding across the sand towards the Atlantic. Behind it, the quieter horizontal bands of sea and sky give the painting its sense of space and calm.

This is a substantial original artwork, approximately 100cm × 50cm × 2cm, painted in acrylic on canvas, with the painting continuing around the sides.

Painted at Mawgan Porth, Cornwall, on one of those September days that quietly reminds you... summer isn't quite finished yet.