In 2004, I was granted my first solo museum exhibition at the Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, California.
As part of the exhibition I performed a slide presentation on the history of nocturne painting. After the show, while the lights were off I turned on my book lights and headlamp, and spent approximately forty minutes demonstrating the night painting techniques I use to paint out on location.
This painting, was purely from imagination: I designed it, first, from a small sketch. I gave the composition a low horizon line, showing the moonlit road (lead line) sweeping up to some Irish type cottages.
I left a few lights on in the structures to give it a sense that somebody may be home. (A human touch sometimes adds warmth and mystery to a painting). However I didn't want too many ambient light sources denoted, for they would distract from the painting's main focal point; the moon.
I began with a green under painting, which, when mixed with the cool blue gray tones of the night, offered an interesting contrast. It is an overall cool painting.
I am still intrigued by this painting; It gives me this desire to visit and paint in Ireland some day; to not only paint, but Howl at the Moon...
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