Powerful Shoreline Maritime Impressionism
Sea Splash is an original 9" × 12" pastel-on-paper painting by contemporary New England landscape and maritime artist Sandra Kavanaugh.
This dynamic seascape captures the power, weight, and motion of a crashing ocean wave. A translucent emerald swell rises through the center of the composition, meeting a burst of white spray and churning foam across the shallow surf.
Key Details
Title: Sea Splash
Artist: Sandra Kavanaugh
Medium: Pastel on paper
Dimensions: 9" × 12" horizontal format
Subject: Seascape / crashing emerald wave and ocean surf
Technical Details and Style
- Medium: Professional-grade soft pastels on textured fine art paper.
- Technique: Dynamic directional scumbling and smooth sweeping strokes convey both energy and transparency. Dense white highlights capture frothy, crashing foam, while blended passages inside the wave suggest the depth and fluidity of moving water.
- Style: Contemporary Impressionism and marine art, emphasizing natural light moving through water and the immediate force of the tide over photographic detail.
- Composition: A balanced horizontal format places the towering wave at left center, where it opens into a dramatic cloud of sea spray on the right. Smooth, reflective, shallow, and horizontal foam lines in the foreground lead the eye upward into the jade-tinted barrel.
- Color palette: Translucent seafoam and emerald greens form the core of the swell, contrasted by crisp white and ice-blue foam. Deep teal, navy, and slate-gray tones add depth to the lower currents.
