Holyrood Abbey - The Illogic of Moonlight

(June 2005) 24 x 30, oil on canvas.
I finished in about nine hours (several sessions) with my left hand -- while fairly shaky from a muscle condition, the same one that's led me to paint left-handed.

This is the ruins of the abbey at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, Scotland, inspired by a picture I took while visiting with my entire family in 2000. It's also inspired by a vague mind-image I have of a New Orleans courtyard -- the night, the moon... vampires lurking in shadows! The colors are simply my favorites; greens, blues, purples. The moonlight shining through the bare ribs of what is left of the Gothic windows is something new for me; I don't often "do" refracted light -- which is probably obvious by the illogic of the way in which the moonlight falls on the ruins.

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