Night & Stars
Aurora, moonlight and dark skies over quiet country.
About Night & Stars
Dark paintings are mostly a lesson in how little you need. Nearly two thirds of what is measured across this collection sits in the blue family, much of it deep blue and indigo, and the small amount that is not is doing all the work: a lit window, the last warmth on a horizon, aurora over a ridge.
A knife helps here in an unobvious way. Dark blended paint goes muddy, and muddy night skies are the reason most night paintings fail. Laying color on in flat planes and leaving it keeps the darks clean, so the sky stays deep rather than gray.
These need thinking about before you hang them. They want a wall that is not fighting a window, because glare on a dark picture is worse than glare on a bright one. Given a quiet corner and a lamp off to one side, they hold a room better than anything else here. Bedrooms and snugs suit them. Bright kitchens do not.