High Desert School, 2026 by Ray Patrick — original oil painting — 2026.029.024

Subject

Weather building over a flat valley, with a row of low buildings and trees along the horizon — the school of the title reduced to two or three white marks.

Composition

Nine tenths sky. The horizon is pushed almost to the bottom edge and runs dead level, so the whole picture is cloud, and the buildings are a thin incident at the base rather than a subject.

Palette

Blues throughout — slate, cerulean and a deep navy in the cloud shadow, with white only where the light breaks through. The strip of land is green and olive, the one warm note a thin orange line in the foreground.

Handling

The cloud is scrubbed in overlapping diagonal strokes that keep their own edges, so the mass is built from facets rather than modelled. The buildings are three white dashes, put in last and not elaborated.

Medium and support

Oil on board. Thickly worked in the sky with visible ridges; the land is thin by comparison. The board's edges are painted white.

Signature

No signature visible within the painted area.