The Full Moon Tree and Me

‘Full Moon Tree’ ©Kris Cahill 2025. Acrylic on canvas, 20” x 20” x 1.5”. Not for sale.

A live painting session helped me take a step as an artist.

At the end of the two hour event, but before I completed the painting later in my studio.

Here I am, wearing all white for my live painting event. Until this event, I didn’t have any white clothes in my closet, not even a t-shirt. I learned many years ago that no matter how careful I was, white clothing on me would inevitably attract the most indelible stains possible.

The last time I remember wearing white was a summer long ago. I sew a lot of my clothes, and had made a brand new pair of fabulous white pants that I planned to wear to an event one evening. Within 15 minutes of arriving at my destination, an entire glass of red wine mysteriously launched itself at my pants.

This happened every. single. time. I would wear white - messy things would find their way to my white garment, whatever it happened to be.

But when I was planning my outfit for the live painting event, it had to be white.

This wasn’t originally my idea, it was proposed to me by the friend who hired me to paint live, and I thought it was a great idea. Several visits to local Goodwill stores brought me an entire white outfit, plus backups. I even found an amazing very new pair of white Converse sneakers, which happily didn’t get any paint on them while painting.

Thus outfitted, I purchased an easel, packed my art materials, and I was ready to paint live in the middle of a party.

Panos of Scout Living at Ponce City Market in Atlanta, before the event began.

The event was at Scout Living in the beautiful Ponce City Market in midtown Atlanta, a great location. I was perched just next to the caterers, which worked out nicely for me. That room you see above was packed full of people during the event, and it was LOUD.

Painting in the middle of a large group isn’t hard for me in the least. It was a friendly enthusiastic crowd of folks, and people were chatty and curious about what I was doing. Everyone was talking, drinking, and eating, and the energy of the evening was inspiring.

I’d decided in advance that I’d be painting with certain colors, using a lot of textures and stencils, and that my subject would be a red tree.

In the weeks before the event, I’d imagined this painting to have a rich blue sky, going from lighter to darker blues, contrasting with the bright red to orange to pink to dark reds in the tree, and the golden green to deep green of the earth. I wanted it to glow and be colorful, dreamy and other worldly.

There needed to be a moon, a full one. And sparkly but subtle stars.

I’d imagined bare branches reaching up, kind of a late autumn tree, planets too. Since I was a child, I’ve admired the way the bare trees in late autumn and winter looked like they were dancing. I wanted this tree to have its own unique personality and movement.

This was how the painting looked after painting live on site for two hours.

I took home what I’d painted the night of the event, set it on my easel, and over a week or so completed it, with two coats of satin varnish to finish it up, and a wire to hang it up!

The images below are details from the final version of ‘Full Moon Tree’.

Though I was a bit nervous about creating an painting from scratch in front of strangers in just two hours, it was wonderful practice in trusting myself and the many hours I’ve spent painting over the past few years. My commitment to my practice helped me feel confident about the piece I set out to do at this event.

I’m pleased with the final painting, and thrilled to have had the experience of being paid to paint live and create something I love.

‘Full Moon Tree’ is being auctioned on 11/11/25 by the organization that hired me to paint it.