One thing I am very proud about in my paintings is that they are different--they don't come out of one set of colors. I try to find the one exciting color in my view, and that color will set the hue for the rest. In this case it was the green shadow of the waves--every other color took its cue from them.  It becomes a rapid fire dialog of "if that, then this", in the sense of comparing and contrasting the other colors. I also use color to express and feeling and sense of the environment--here, it was queer day, almost ready to storm, kind of wet with humidity in the air, and an eerie agitated current in the  ocean. Green with the purple accents gave me the exact kind of feeling I had being there.