I haven't painted dolphins before but I knew that I wanted to have them jumping and lots of water splashing around.   My next thought was - yeah and splashing water is really hard.

But I was excited to try this and spent a fair while looking at pictures of dolphins and water and made some sketches of how to group them.   

I knew as soon as I'd done the sketch that capturing the dolphin character wasn't going to cause too much trouble.  They're such lovely shapes and are a pleasure to draw.   The water however....

But in the end the water came out well.   I wanted to contrast the loose splashiness of the sea with the smooth lines of the dolphins and I think that comes across well in the finished painting.