This painting shows a lot of what I’m trying to achieve in my work. There is a minimalistic approach to showing what is essential to tell the story. There is vagueness and abstraction in the less critical areas. I think the people have a lifelike quality. I’ve felt my work suffered from monotone skin colors. Here, thier faces has a lot of color and variety, especially his.

If I were to redo it, I would add more reds into the browns, carry it down from the flag and into the bottom to balance the color more. The browns are a bit dull.

Once Crowded Sky copyright Tom King