Nocturne

I love warm, dark summer nights where anything feels possible. I also love nocturne paintings, even though I haven’t painted many. It’s funny how when I see things at night, even though the world is bathed in deep blues, I don’t think I always perceive these colors at the time. But then when I bring up my own memories of things that have happened at night, my mind’s eye assigns these colors, like I’m putting a filter over photographs. Were they always there, and I was just too focused on the lack of light to see them? Or is it something else? I think sometimes I use color when I picture things as a stand in for emotion and feeling — I saturate my own memories with a deep, warm palette. When I paint something like this, I’m trying to use the color to communicate something I can’t even really describe. It’s just a feeling.

This painting is 5″ by 7″, acrylic on illustration board, in a 11 x 14″ frame (artwork comes fully framed).