Noon Moon 20 - 02 Painting

Noon Moon is one of Blake’s longest running series of abstract paintings. Built on the fact that there is always a bright side of the moon (and a dark side of course) these works depict a close up of the moon’s surface at high noon. Strong shadows punctuate the sun drenched moon rock reflecting the difference between sun and shadow potentially at its greatest. “I love being away from the city lights during a full moon. Absorbing the craters and valleys of our lunar sun with the naked eye. It fills me with appreciation for everything that is guiding us, all the details that are there, whether we can see them or not. It’s easy to be moonstruck in New York City, and I love knowing, retaining those details you can see up in the high desert or out on the ocean that you can never quite see as clearly in the city. That brightness, that energy, the pulse of the lunar calendar is captured in these Noon Moon paintings. At least, at most, that’s what I’m going for. The thrill of making my own paints with raw pigments also seems to go hand in hand with the fantasy of moon dust.” The first dozen layers of a noon moon painting are primarily a “living finish” built up with dry pigments that Blake picks up all over the world, studio made temperas, gouache, chalk, and fine plasters. The top layers start incorporating more fixed pigments, enamels, acrylics, and oils to insure an archival “fixed finish.”