I was attracted to this drawing by its curious double-edged format, and the almost abstract approximation of the marks that conform, only with some difficulty, to a line of ships on the horizon, and waves breaking on the shore – a staccato stitching of masts, rigging and waves. This ‘encoding’ has apparently occurred out of expediency: one imagines Turner pausing briefly on a walk along the strandline, looking out to the horizon, scratching out the lines on a folded sheet pulled from his wallet, and then having a second attempt on the other half; responding to fast-moving tide, ships and weather.

Looking at the topsy-turvy sheet folded out, one is faced with clustered energy, like magnetically charged rain-clouds: reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of a ‘Cloudburst of material possessions’.

Working from the drawing, I soon abandoned any attempt to transcribe Turner’s actual marks as futile and pointless: my task was to draw something that responded, in terms of nerve and movement to Turner’s original impulse: I did not have his waves and ships to work from, sitting in the quiet of the Tate’s Print Room. It became more like a musical improvisation upon the theme that Turner’s vigorous little scrap had provided.