Weathered

ACRYLIC ON CANVAS • 40″ x 48″
original art commissioned by Ted & Claire
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This one is for friends Ted and Claire who live in Colorado, land of extremely variable weather. They wanted a painting that reflected some of the color and variety they see on a daily basis. After consulting with them about what they liked, I went through a few rounds of Photoshop mockups of possibilities. The combination of these large clouds with a hint of reddish mountains won out.

I decided to make a triptych out of it rather than use one large canvas. Since these were considerably bigger canvases than I could paint on the table I usually use, I painted them propped against my closet.

The mountains came together right away. Probably helps that the tones mostly matched the base layers of yellow ochre and burnt sienna. They were so fast and natural to paint that it made me think of Bob Ross. He must have made some happy little mountains for all of those happy little trees to be around.

The clouds involved a lot of drybrushing. I end up mashing my brushes quite a bit with this, but I was pretty good about washing them immediately and they don’t seem too much worse for the wear. I skewed a little lighter on the overall look so I could focus on the subtleties in the pink and golden tones while keeping the weight of the big puffy cumulus clouds.

The progression on this one was a little odd in that it hit a stage where I was pretty happy with it early on. That’s good and bad: the good thing is that it’s motivating to see it come together right away, and the bad thing is that it can make me nervous about moving ahead and messing it up. Once I started adding in the pink tones, I could see more clearly how much more was needed. Also, on some paintings I just get a clear sense of when I’m done, like my recent tomato painting. On others, I see a point where it’s close to where I want it to be and I need to stop myself from overworking it. This was one of those.

It’s ready to go to its new home in Colorado.