It all starts with an idea, a spark, something that catches your eye and stays in your thoughts while your working on other projects. That's how this studio painting came about. It started with me driving to Grand Junction, Colorado from Moab, Utah. I drive this route every couple of weeks and I always love the color and shape of the clouds that occur around 13 miles north of Moab. So a couple weeks ago I went out on a cloudy afternoon and painted this 8"x 8" plein air study. My original thought was to turn this into a 36" x 36" large work, but I started noticing the great clouds floating by to the right of this thunder head. So I photographed it as well.
Back in the studio a few days later I did this preliminary 8"x 8" painting of the different cloud layout, using the original plein air piece for a color reference.
Next I built a stretched canvas, using stretcher bars from French Canvas of New Jersey and primed canvas. This photo is from a canvas I built last year but the construction is the same.
Now that the canvas is on the easel the first thing I do is texture the surface. I use acrylic paint to add brush strokes as an under painting. Once that dries, I paint a wash over the entire canvas. I don't like painting on a white surface; this time a chose a light blue/purple wash because I'm painting mostly sky and I didn't want to struggle against an opposing color, like orange. Once the wash was dry I drew a grid out on the canvas surface . I also drew a grid over a scaled drawing and photo. Then I transfer the outlines of the clouds and ground to the canvas, using the grid as a guide.
See Part 2 for the remaining steps
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