Mercury’s Caloris Basin

10”x20” oil on canvas

NFS

After painting a few MarsScapes that are dominated by warm colors, I turned my attention to other cratered surfaces in our solar system. For Mercury, I decided to work entirely in shades of gray. I prefer to mix my own black by combing ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, and so easily shifted my grays slightly toward blue by adjusting the ratio of paint. I applied the paint entirely by palette knife, wanting to lend some messiness to my painting, and not wanting to duplicate the photograph (taken by Mariner 10, image credit M. S. Robinson). I am very happy with the overall effect of the painting, the texture created by the palette knife and the blending from shadow on the left to bright light on the right (not as easily done without a brush). However, the final painting is too similar to the original photograph for my comfort level, and so this painting will happily remain in my private collection.