Nocturne 1991

Eyvind Earle made this painting called 'Nocturne', and what I love is how it shows his absolute control of gouache to create this amazing sense of depth through layers of flat colour. The bands of greens up top pull you in, but it's the shapes of the trees that really catch my eye. Look at how each leaf is suggested with tiny dots of colour, they look like little pixels or like a pointillist painting. It's wild to think about the patience and skill it took to make these trees come alive. Earle worked as a background artist for Disney, and you can totally see that influence here. But there's also something about it that reminds me of a cross between the Hudson River School painters and Milton Avery. It's this mix of meticulous detail and simplified shapes that makes his paintings so special.