High Desert Sunset, 2026 by Ray Patrick — original oil painting — 2026.027.022

Subject

The last of the sun behind a desert ridge, with the land already in darkness — a low roofline and a few trees just readable along the horizon.

Composition

Split almost exactly in half by the ridge, with blazing sky above and near-black land below. The ridge dips at the centre and that dip is where the brightest colour sits; nothing else in the picture asks for attention.

Palette

The hottest on the wall — cadmium orange across the whole sky, going to yellow at the point of the sun. Below, a single cobalt ridge, then a dark green-black that carries a few small flecks of true green and red.

Handling

The sky is stroked in short horizontal marks of nearly the same value, so it reads as one field of colour rather than a graduation. The land is laid in flat and heavy, with the roofline put in afterwards in two or three strokes.

Medium and support

Oil on board. Thick in the sky, with raised ridges where the orange is heaviest. The board's edges are painted white.

Signature

No signature visible within the painted area.

From the artist:

The warm sun dips behind a ridge of hills out in the desert. The warm smell of summer lingers in the air as night approaches.