Moonlight Chat

This painting began as a collage of pieces of retired sails from Hoistaway Bags in York Maine. I used this as the base for this painting as it brought a good amount of texture to the surface but at the same time became a difficult surface feature to work with as I painted. I continued to work with it until I realized that maybe using the texture in a closer value area in the trees would help unify the piece. This became the direction that turned into this painting. I liked the way the trees interconnected as the moon shined through. The darks allowed the middle value of the trees to be somewhat lit by the moonlight. And it gave a frame of sorts to focus on the couple in conversation in the doorway.