Title: Dancing Water #10
Artist: Sandra Kavanaugh
Medium: Pastel on paper
Dimensions: 8" × 6"
Overview
Dancing Water #10 is a luminous vertical maritime pastel by contemporary New England artist Sandra Kavanaugh. This intimate 8" × 6" seascape captures the energy of a cresting ocean wave just as it begins to break, revealing translucent green water, crisp white foam, and cool coastal depth.
Why Collect This Work
Small in scale yet full of movement, Dancing Water #10 brings the force and freshness of the shoreline into an intimate format. The broad curling wave rises diagonally through the composition before collapsing into frothy surf, allowing light to pass through the swell and reveal the layered motion of moving water.
Highlights
- Original artwork: One-of-a-kind pastel painting by Sandra Kavanaugh.
- Coastal subject: A cresting ocean wave, churning sea foam, and deep surrounding water in a vertical seascape format.
- Atmospheric mood: Fresh, energetic, and maritime, with a strong sense of moving water and reflected coastal light.
- Appealing palette: Sage green, light olive, seafoam, crisp white, ice blue, deep indigo, teal, and soft slate gray.
- Display appeal: A compact 8" × 6" size suited for a gallery wall, beach house, study, hallway, office, shelf display, or maritime art collection.
Technique and Surface
- Medium: Professional-grade soft pastels on textured fine art paper.
- Technique: Fluid layered scumbling and directional pastel strokes create the wave’s motion, transparency, and breaking foam.
- Composition: A vertical layout centers on a large diagonal wave, with churning white surf anchoring the lower-right foreground and deeper water opening above.
- Style: Contemporary Impressionism and marine art, emphasizing atmospheric light, active water texture, and immediate visual impact over photographic detail.
