The sea is a sculptor of great variation. Flushing its water in and out it shapes and reshapes forms and patterns in the sand. It brings and takes shells and stones and often ‘pasta’-forms in red and brown tagliatelle -sea vegetables reminds me of Italian food. Sometimes a dead fish or bird and leftovers from fisher boats, recently being thrown overboard. Pools of water may left behind after the sea retreats, trapped by ridges of sand, and they might be gone or reformed the day after. 

Assisted by the wind and under pressure of cosmic movements the incoming sea creates patterns and shapes in the sand. The sea brings and takes. Twice a day it reveals its powerful creativity when the tide is low. It’s a regular thing, the tide, as regular as the times I visit the beach in the early morning hours.

Every week I go the beach and make a watercolour. It is a short visit, one hour at the most, and in every season. Usually a day in the weekend, often more than once a week. Most of the time the weather is dry, sometimes a little humid because of a fog or spray-rain. And it is always the same beach. I sit and watch and listen to the sea and the wind. My wife and dog are always with me, we have coffee and eat the bakery stuff we bought on our way. While my associates walk the beach I paint an impression of that morning, a quick notation. It is the expression of me on the beach, on that day, in this weather, a reflection of my existence. It’s done quick and always with the same set of colours, with one brush on a piece of paper of similar size. It takes about half an hour. At home I put it with the others, it has become a collection.

The location is always the same beach: Carteret Plage, a fifteen minutes’ drive from our home in Bricquebec. And its always on a morning, first thing after getting out of bed. We have 2 cups of tea, and we go, and we are always together, me and my wife and dog. It turned into a habit. I never go on my own.
Being on that same beach – every week again – I have developed a solid relation with that beach. It became a confident place on earth, a second home, it’s my favorite beach, of course.

So after a few years it became a stability: the sea is always the same, as are the tidal movements, the sand on the beach, the rocky backland with its holiday homes and beach-cottages, our visits, getting there, being there and making a watercolor and then, leaving again. A continuing regular movement, like the regular tides.
It’s always the same and it’s always different, because I am different and so are the watercolors that are a print of that different moments, piling up at home and depicting a process.

Watercolour has the ability that the painting will still go on when the artist has withdrawn, the final result is only obtained when the painting has dried up and the colours have stopped moving around, I find this a very nice appearance.

Besides the emotional state of the painter (me) the paintings are based on the reality on the location. It provides the necessary characteristics of the composition and a help to get going with the creative process. Choice of colors is made by intuition, the weather – clouds, sun, wind – directs the choice of light and darkness. The actual painting activity is an ongoing process without any pause. Often is wetness the signal to stop. This means the end of the painting of the day. It is what it is.