Where fire meets tide

This dramatic alcohol ink painting on Yupo paper captures the raw, elemental power of the Jurassic Coast's cliffs. The composition suggests a windswept shoreline where geological epochs meet the restless sea.
The sea itself is rendered in cool gradients of pale turquoise and slate, calm yet ever-reaching. In striking contrast, the cliffs rise in molten tones of burnt sienna, amber, and black — like fire caught in stone. Veins of  charcoal, and lavender-grey ripple through the midsection, conjuring the complex strata and weather-worn textures of eroded rock.
Beneath it all, warm ochres and honeyed golds evoke sand and sunlit earth — a grounding force amid the stormy palette above.
There is tension here, but also beauty — the kind born from millennia of pressure, release, and transformation.
 
Here, at the edge of a restless world,
the land remembers its molten birth —
a cliff face kissed by flame,
seared in sienna and smoke.
The ocean presses in,
cool and persistent,
its blues a balm against
the scorched and trembling earth.
They meet not in battle,
but in a dance of slow undoing —
tide carving time
into the bones of stone.
Beneath the chaos,
a hush of gold —
the shore, patient and bright,
holds their memory.
This is the place
where fire meets tide,
and something ancient
rises in the silence between.
 
19.2cm by  24cm