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Once in a blue moon

Well, the view from my window is mostly of the white variety – a winter wonderland of frosted twigs and leaves reaching up to a cold clear white sky and snow on the ground and thick ice where the cars and footsteps have broken through the snow and its frozen solidly on it afterwards. I’m happy to have a day indoors, particularly as I have a sniffly cold and racking cough, and annoyingly can’t say where I got it from since it started on Monday and I reckon I must have picked it up on Friday and all I did then was go out and get petrol!

Anyway, I digress, it’s time for me to unveil my latest painting – the one that I talked about the other week, the one that I was inspired to paint very early in the new year as I saw the moonlight through winter trees and was struck by the shape that  I saw as a broken branch against the moon behind it which has fully inspired this picture. And I will just add to that, that a couple of days ago I saw the same trees in full daylight and went specifically to look for the special branch that inspired the picture, and stood in exactly the same place looking in the same direction, and even though I looked at all of the three or four trees that it related to, I couldn’t see it, not at all. So all I can surmise is that although the branch is obviously there, since I saw it clearly that night, and no I hadn’t had a drink before you make that comment, it was one of those moments in time of being in the right place at the right time and seeing it then because the moon focused my attention to it,  rather than artistic licence! Having said that, the picture here has enhanced parts in it, since I have created these trees to depict the image and the message I wanted to convey. And have added more to it than I saw on that crisp moonlit night. I know this is a simple picture at first sight as it only has four things in it -  two trees, the moon, and the sky. And it only has three colours in it, the blue of the sky, the cream of the moon and the silhouetted black of the trees. And that is why I had to get this very simple picture right, as the drawing had to be correct down to the tiniest of marks on the page and I had to repaint my first picture as the blue of the night sky wasn’t that lovely delicate greeny-blue of the night sky. But I’m really pleased with the simplicity of it and what is there in it, when you look closely.

So, I want to know, what can you see in the picture? What is is about?  I’ll give you a clue – its called “Once in a blue moon” and as you know – I love to hide things within my paintings…….