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The best paintings begin with great abstract designs.  This painting began with a scroll through thumbnail photos of a truly awesome storm I recently drove through.  I find clouds fascinating--this is a series I don't expect to see the end of anytime soon.

The thumbnail, white and black charcoal on toned paper, is a 4-value design with big, simple shapes.  I experimented with creating one simple large mass on the bottom right, but decided I liked a more broken shape.  Notice the exaggerated telephone pole:  when I added that linear detail, I realized what a pivotal role it played both for design and mood.  The sharp edges and hard lines lead the eye in and echo the hard edge in the top right quadrant, creating tension with the amorphous soft shapes.  Thinking in abstract, rather than realistic terms strengthens overall design at this stage, as it allows me to pay attention to design elements rather than 'things.'

My Underpainting: Using the thumbnail as my value guide, I massed in a very abstract underpainting of large shapes.  Notice the soft edges in the clouds and temperature shift from cloud to landmass.  The underpainting makes my job much easier by establishing a value and temperature foundation.  While the whole painting is fairly cool (reds to blues) the sky shapes are coolest, blues and purples, and the earth shapes push slightly warmer, toward cranberry red, which will support the deep greens going over them.

"Breakthrough," 20 x 24

The finished piece is now showing at the PSA "Enduring Brilliance" show in NYC, Sept 6-Oct 1.  Note the effect of the underpainting on the choice of colors in the finished work.    A note on getting volume in clouds:  often the value shifts are extremely subtle, and shifting temperature can be more effective than shifting values.  the bottom of these clouds is a dark blue-green, reflecting the ground and facing away from the light.  As the clouds loft up, they acheive a bit more volume by shifting slightly warmer, toward periwinkle, scumbled with a turquoise because of the greenish light bouncing in the air.  Higher still, the clouds become almost lavender pink in spots, and also pale turquoise blue.  Shifts in temperature as well as value helps to suggest space and volume in the clouds.