Kiss of the Fire Moon

There are a few areas in the piece where some air bubbles formed when I adhered the paper to the wood panel. These bubbles are most visible when a bright light is shown on the piece, although they're not visible in the images here. I think most people wouldn't see them, but f you have OCD tendencies, you may want to skip this one. The price has been discounted due to the bubbles. This piece has heavy texture in places. This texture comes from building up heavy layers of paint, which provides a rich history for the piece, not all of which is always visible. The piece is finished with a coat of Liquitex satin varnish and a cold wax rub, both of which help protect the painting over time. The painting has a satin/matte finish. This piece is mounted on wood panel. It comes wired for hanging. A certificate of authenticity is adhered to the back of the piece using archival-quality adhesive.

As with most intuitive paintings, it takes some time for it to work out what it wants to be. I could see early on that it wanted to be a kind of duet, with 2 main elements. The ground area started out black, but then it veered red. I like how this piece warps and curves reality, with the edges of the scene petering out as it reaches up into the sky. My goal is to paint dreamlike images and I feel like this fits that category. I also love how the styling for the flower and moon connect them in a kind of dance, each leaning in towards the other, each made of the same nighttime energy. The little dandelions were a last minute addition that add some sweetness to the scene. I put more of them on the left since it was a little vacant there. I really love the play between orange-red and cyan, and I like to use variations on that combo in many of my works. It’s usually a pop of vermillion against some variation of phthalo green, but this time I inverted that and focused more on the red. I painted most of this with an odd little palette knife that makes little parallel grooves in the paint. I love leaving odd visible brushstrokes in a piece. I used a q-tip to make the dandelions, a silicone basting brush to make the spiky grass shapes, a toothbrush to make some of the star blobs, and the tip of a wooden skewer to make the tiny star dots. Finally, I used a detail brush to paint those little pops of cyan into the center of the moon and flower. I then cut the piece down to 21"x21" in order to mount it on a 20"x20" wood panel, with an inch of extra around each edge for good measure. I then adhered the paper to the panel with gloss medium.