Quiet Nights Collection

A little insight into these paintings:

The song that inspired me to paint them, Send Us a Quiet Night, means a lot to me, as I live by the sea on the west coast of Scotland. On calm, clear nights, when the moonlight settles on gentle water, it’s a very peaceful, comforting, beautiful place to be. However, when the weather fronts move in from the Atlantic, you look out at an all together different scene. The forces of nature at work make you feel very small… You fear for the people on the little boats, and sometimes even the big boats, that must go out onto the ocean, regardless of the conditions.

I painted the quiet night hoped for in this song by the sailors. It’s a wonderful song, poetry really. I imagine the moon arriving through cloud, as the boat becomes a distant spec on the horizon at the mouth to the Atlantic. Moonlight glinting upon the boat, as if to say, “it’s okay, tonight you’ll have a safe voyage”. I wonder if I’ll paint the opposite scene, the moon gone, a dark, stormy, fearful night… We’ll see.