I started this painting in late 2024 with the goal of painting the furthest away and most colorful object worth painting in the world, and by in the world in mean on the surface of the planet, because there are some interesting things in the sky but that is outside the scope of this painting. I chose a container ship all the way out at the horizon, sized so the containers are 1 pixel tall.
This painting began with a black and white underpainting in all 3 color channels. I then glazed over the grayscale painting with a thin layer of red, green, and blue. This approach to pixel painting did not work out as well as I thought it would. Even though my glaze was thin, the value range ended up being really small. The darkest spots were not that dark, and the brightest spots were not that bright. I shelved the painting for about 15 months after completing that glaze layer because I was not sure how I could fix the painting without basically doing the same process over again, and I really wanted to work on some other paintings.
Eventually I realized that these RGB paintings are actually super easy to edit once they are dry. I was able to edit the painting by eye without opening my old value spreadsheet. I decided to move the horizon down below the ship because my initial goal was to paint something very far away, and the ship can actually be beyond the horizon and still visible because of the fata morgana mirage, which occurs when light passes through an atmospheric lens created by warmer air that sits on top of a layer of colder air. The ship sitting a few pixels above the horizon signifies that must actually be further than the horizon.
oil on linen panel, 24×20”
Completed in spring, 2026
The surface is linen mounted on a ¼ inch thick honeycomb aluminum panel. Frame is included (real wood and gold leaf)
I started this painting in late 2024 with the goal of painting the furthest away and most colorful object worth painting in the world, and by in the world in mean on the surface of the planet, because there are some interesting things in the sky but that is outside the scope of this painting. I chose a container ship all the way out at the horizon, sized so the containers are 1 pixel tall.
This painting began with a black and white underpainting in all 3 color channels. I then glazed over the grayscale painting with a thin layer of red, green, and blue. This approach to pixel painting did not work out as well as I thought it would. Even though my glaze was thin, the value range ended up being really small. The darkest spots were not that dark, and the brightest spots were not that bright. I shelved the painting for about 15 months after completing that glaze layer because I was not sure how I could fix the painting without basically doing the same process over again, and I really wanted to work on some other paintings.
Eventually I realized that these RGB paintings are actually super easy to edit once they are dry. I was able to edit the painting by eye without opening my old value spreadsheet. I decided to move the horizon down below the ship because my initial goal was to paint something very far away, and the ship can actually be beyond the horizon and still visible because of the fata morgana mirage, which occurs when light passes through an atmospheric lens created by warmer air that sits on top of a layer of colder air. The ship sitting a few pixels above the horizon signifies that must actually be further than the horizon.
oil on linen panel, 24×20”
Completed in spring, 2026
The surface is linen mounted on a ¼ inch thick honeycomb aluminum panel. Frame is included (real wood and gold leaf)
