Here is “Sequoias Under the Stars.”
This large-scale painting is 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall!
The client who commissioned this painting asked me to bring her vision to life: a nighttime scene, in which a circle of giant sequoia trees stands under the stars, with the Milky Way spread out across the sky above us.
She was deeply inspired by a visit to the redwood forests in California, where she saw giant sequoia trees still standing strong after their centers had been hollowed out by forest fires.
She asked me to incorporate one of these trees with the hollow center, where you can look all the way through the tree, like looking through a window.
And the final request from my client was a color scheme of bright blues and lilac.
The brilliant blue on the left of the canvas shifts to a light greenish turquoise at the bottom. The light shining from the bottom gives the feeling that there may be a bright full moon in the sky, obscured by the tree on the bottom.
The right side of the canvas is filled with beautiful tones of lilac and deep purple.
I want all of my paintings to shine with light. In fact, one of the distinct features of my paintings in recent years, regardless of the subject, is that they look almost like they are lit from within. I want to give the impression that the painting itself is a source of light when hung on the wall.
One of the challenges of painting a scene of nighttime darkness is how to make an image that doesn’t lose that brightness and luminosity. The use of brilliant colors helps to achieve that luminous effect, while also clearly being a nighttime scene.
I knew I had achieved the desired effect when I pointed my smartphone camera at the painting, and the camera app automatically changed to nighttime mode!
When you look closely, you can see the billions of stars created with countless tiny splatters and dots of paint.
It makes you contemplate the unfathomable enormity of the universe, wondering whether a small white splotch might be an individual star, or a vast cloud of stars in a distant galaxy.
This painting makes us feel tiny, and also a part of something bigger than the mind can comprehend. It reminds us how lucky we are to experience the wonder of living on this beautiful Earth.
I created this painting to the largest scale that would fit on the client’s wall! This image shows the painting in the client’s home. We decided to go big for dramatic effect.
This beautiful and inspiring image is already dramatic, but the large scale puts it over-the-top! Pictures do not fully capture the experience of seeing this painting in person.
From across the room, it’s like looking out a window into a starry sky. Then, up close, you can get lost in the many interesting details.
Prints of this painting are available.
If you’re interested in commissioning a work of art for yourself in the future, check out my commission policy.