This piece was painted at Welcombe Mouth in North Devon, one of my favourite raw, remote and untamed beaches. For two days I simply absorbed the place until the mist rolled in, the waves rose and the weather began to turn – this was my moment.

The rock strata there feels like serrated metal, stacked in jagged sheets and saw-blade ridges. I found the right view, but no flat surface, so I balanced the canvas on a sharp vertical peak of rock while the wind knocked it sideways and twice blew it into a neighbouring rock pool. I worked quickly, retreating again and again from the incoming tide as water filled the pools around me and foamed over the slippery diagonal stone. At one point I slipped into the incoming water myself. The whole piece carries that early storm energy, half balance, half surrender, made on a coastline that would not sit still for a second.