Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.
—-Herman Melville
This is a piece that I’ve been working on for the last few days, a 20″ by 24″ canvas. I’ve spent quite a bit of time just looking at this painting and have felt both happiness and a bittersweet sadness from it.
Perhaps it is that sense of home that many of us seek, that need for a place of our own in the world. A repository of memories and hopes where we are secure from the prying eyes of the outside world.
There is a real duality in that image, both happy and sad, because the ideal is always fleeting and ephemeral when found. But still we feel the need to seek.
I don’t know if that makes any sense to anyone living outside my head but that is what I see in this piece. That sense of dual purpose is actually is what I hope for all my work, to have a work pull up conflicting emotions. I think it heightens the emotional impact, gives contrast to the dominant feeling.
For me, this piece works on those terms.
Redtree Times 
After looking at your painting, I was reminded of the work of Arnold Friburg and I went on to google his work. I think Friburg is best known for his painting of Washington Praying beside his horse at Valley Forge and I think he is also well known for his religious paintings, he may even have done the storyboards for “The Ten Commandments”.
In some of his paintings the subject matter seems to exist in a golden glow that unifies the elements and holds them together in a warm light created by sunlight or a religious event.
It’s interesting that you’re considering the compositional elements and I am perhaps most affected by your palette. Thanks, you and Friburg gave me something to consider.
Nice Work
bh
Thanks, Brian. I think I’ll go google Arnold Friburg…