Moon Studies
Lantern House Gallery · Nocturne · 2025- Medium
- Oil, thin glazes
- Support
- Linen and gessoed panel
- Sizes
- 50 × 70 cm to 100 × 180 cm
- Painted
- January to October 2025
- Shown at
- Lantern House Gallery
- Available
- Moon Study, Low Tide
You cannot paint moonlight while you look at it. Your eyes change too much. So I looked, went to bed, and painted in the morning.
Each study started on the night of a full moon. I stood at the water for an hour and made no marks at all. The rule was simple: no sketch, no phone, no notes.
The next morning I painted what was left. What stays is less than you think. The shape of the light on the water, one dark rock, the color of the sky near the moon. Everything else I let go.
The large canvas, Night Train, Lake Ferrow, came from a ride home in October. It is the only one painted from a seat rather than a shore.
The first study was mostly cloud. The moon only came through for about four minutes.
Low tide, a still night, and a path of light so bright it looked solid.
A deer came to the pool while I stood there. It stayed in the memory, so it stayed in the picture.
Plates 04 Moon Studies · 2025
Every nocturne starts on a toned ground of raw umber and black. The light is the only thick paint on the canvas. Everything dark stays thin and quiet.
- Ground
- Raw umber and ivory black
- Light
- Lead white, a touch of Naples yellow
“The best nocturnes I have seen in years. She paints the dark as carefully as the light.”
Four canvases from the studio wall.
Moon Studies · Oil on linen and panel · 2025-
01 Moon Study, Low Tide -
02 Moon Study, Cloud Bank -
03 Moon Study, Deer Pool -
04 Night Train, Lake Ferrow
One painter, one studio, moon studies.
Full credits
Behind the series
- Painted by
- Odile Marrow
- Panels
- Fernhill Panel Works
- Frames
- Ashby and Rowe, Wrenhaven
- Photography of the works
- Mira Castell
- Shown by
- Lantern House Gallery
And twelve full moons, one at a time.