Clouded Wilderness

Oil on linen, 7″ x 5″

When I started this painting I didn’t have a plan for what I wanted to make. Instead, I painted shapes with yellow ochre domestic (Williamsburg) and an alkyd fast dry titanium white (Da Vinci).

As I slowly covered the canvas I thought of various ideas for what the shapes could become. It was between this or a sunset. If I had chosen a sunset I would have used the darker shapes as clouds and the lighter shapes as the sky behind them. Just to see how it would look, I started painting the shapes of mountains into the darker areas and I decided to go with that.

The linen panel I used was one I had already covered in some reddish paint, maybe Indian red or something similar, a long time ago. That color shows through a little in places where the paint is thinner or where the bristle marks cut down into the paint.