Chalk pastel on black paper.

One of my favorite historical paintings is van Gogh's “Wheatfield with Crows”. The warm colors of the ground, the cool colors of the sky, and the black crows – which are neither warm nor cool – crossing the boundary. I tried to create a similar effect in this picture.

Chalk pastel on black paper is one of my favorite ways to draw (with physical media, anyway). A dark image with a few bright highlights looks much more vivid to me than most things with a white background can be.

The “archway going to nowhere” is a cool fantasy trope. I'm not quite satisfied with this one, though. Because the black paper is actually less dark than the archway itself, it feels more like “I just didn't draw anything there” than “That's spooky, I wonder what's past the archway?”