Some years ago I had a miniature doxie. He insisted on talking a walk at three to four in the morning. This particular morning we were in an RV park at Elephant Butte lake, New Mexico. It was quite, cool and fresh filled with the smells of the desert. While Boris was doing his thing I got to look at the beautiful almost surreal scene of the moon peeking through the clouds shining gentle light upon the lake surface. At the time I had just started learning pallet knife painting and knew I did not have the skill to do this painting with the pallet knife, which was how I wanted to present this view.

I think it was about four years later I felt good enough about my pallet knife skills to do this painting. I wanted to make smooth reflective ripples in the water with different degrees of bluish colors. The technique I learned was to hold a two inch by three eights of an inch pallet knife lightly but firmly between my thumb and first three fingers. Different parts of the painting required different small volumes of paint to be firmly and semi-swiftly struck across the canvas with a predetermined decision about how and where I wanted that stroke. It is the only way that I have discovered to get that smooth shiny surface. The sky was done with brushwork.