Blackwaterfoot Arran

Paint sits on this canvas in thick slabs, pushed around with a palette knife rather than brushed. The clouds are built from flat white wedges that catch real light on their edges, and the ridge of hills across the water is a single dark blue band with a few sharp peaks scraped into it. Down on the shore, bands of red, orange, yellow and pale green run across the sand, which is less about what was actually there and more about what the light was doing on a bright, windy day. Even the sea gets the same treatment, a stack of blue and turquoise strokes with the white of the canvas showing through where the waves break.

Blackwaterfoot is a small village on the west coast of the Isle of Arran in Scotland, known for its tiny harbour and a view straight across to the Kintyre peninsula. Just up the coast lies King's Cave, one of several Scottish caves that claim to be the spot where Robert the Bruce watched a spider rebuild its web and decided to try again. Peter King works in a contemporary impressionist manner, chasing the feel of coastal weather rather than a faithful record of it, and this piece is a straightforward example: quick, confident, and more interested in colour than in detail. His small signature sits in the lower right, tucked into the sand.