As a little girl from Kansas, I did not see the ocean until I was 12 years old. I remember the wonderment of seeing a palm tree for the very first time and smelling the salt in the ocean air. And then I saw the ocean. It was like nothing I ever saw before and more beautiful than the photos I had seen in magazines. I truly thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was the beginning of a long, obsessive love affair. In creating this beach-inspired collection of art, my hope was to create imagery reminiscent of the special moments at the seashore – the smell of the sea breeze with damp, cool sand between my toes, pretty little seashells, aqua blue water, pink sunsets, warm sun and white foam atop the ripples of waves flowing to the shore. With beach-inspired colors, I created my art pieces using wide sweeping brush strokes, intuitively blending colors together to create a soft muted palette. My goal in creating this series of paintings was to create abstract color palettes reminiscent of the beach giving you the ability to bring these colors into your home in a minimalistic, artistic and expressive way. Whitehaven is part of my beach collection series of 12 paintings.