Blue Moonrise Poster

This painting grew out of my memories of childhood camping trips to Wisconsin. Leaving the Chicago area for remote corners and rural areas took us to campsites on lakes good for fishing. At night, dark skies sparkled with stars, and the ground and trees appeared nearly black. If the Moon was full, its light appeared much more bright than at home because the places we camped had so few people and few sources of artificial light. Blue Moonrise captures those memories in acrylic on canvas. A full Moon recently risen in the east dominates a brilliant night sky that changes colour from indigo at the top to ultramarine in the middle to purplish blue near the horizon. Lunar light extends vertically and horizontally and creates a milky effect around the Moon via wispy clouds. A tree made strange by darkness rises up at right, an undulating horizon line indicates Wisconsin's gently rolling topography, and tiny structures at far left hint at a village or town from another time. A few lights on the horizon suggest inhabited areas far off in the distance, while moonshine reflected from Earth glows just above them in a horizontal ribbon.