“Parting The Red Sea” is the biggest piece I’ve yet to do at 4′ x 5′. The location for the scene is from the exact spot that historians believe Moses crossed the sea at. To find the landscape, I went to Google maps and found a street view photo from right next to the site. Egypt uses it as a tourist beach now, but it has several historical markers as well. Using the street view photo, I turned it to face away from the beach and these are the mountains behind it. There’s a pathway cutting through them as well, so in the painting you can see a cloud of dust rising from the chariots giving chase.

The sunset comes from another photo of a sunset at that beach as well, making it really hit home with what they could have seen that night. Now, the crossing happened at night under a new moon, which added to the Egyptians’ confusion, so artistic license on the sunset setting.