Sketches, colour tests, half-thoughts and the occasional long letter on process. The unedited middle of the work — between the blank page and the finished painting.
People assume the moon is grey. It isn’t — it’s a hundred warm and cool greys arguing with each other.
Start with a mid-tone ground so you can work both lighter and darker. Map the maria as soft cool shapes first, then carve the craters with a near-dry brush. Keep the terminator — the edge between light and shadow — slightly soft, never a hard line.
Finish with the faintest halo of pale gold so it glows rather than sits.
Dropping pigment into a soaking sheet and letting gravity compose the cloud. Half the results are unusable. The other half are better than anything I could plan.
The quietest hour. Painting before the day asks anything of me. The overview effect is easier to feel when the city is still asleep.
