First Light, Galway Bay — New Year’s Day 2026

There is something quietly extraordinary about standing on the shore of Galway Bay as the first light of a new year breaks across the water. This original watercolour captures that fleeting, luminous moment — the sun burning low through layered cloud, casting a ribbon of gold across a silver sea.
The palette tells the story of an Irish winter morning: cool greys and blue-greens in the sky and water, warmed through by amber and yellow where the light breaks free. Dark rocks sit silhouetted on the horizon, grounding the composition and lending a sense of place — unmistakably the west of Ireland. The wet sand at the shoreline mirrors the glow above, connecting sky and earth in one unbroken thread of light.
Painted on the first morning of 2026, this piece holds the particular stillness of a world just beginning again, it is hopeful, unhurried, and quietly alive.