Building a painting on a colored surface

I enjoy painting on colored surfaces. Whether warm or cool in color, prepared by me or purchased from a manufacturer ready to use, my objective is the same: allow the painting ground’s surface-color to peek through the layers of applied paint for expressive effect.

For this painting I chose a neutral gray, an unusual choice for me for this reason: I daydream a painting into being, first 'seeing it' in my mind's-eye, as a finshed composition, always with a definite mood defined by color. As you might expect the color-temperature of the scene in mind influences my choice of 'under-painting.' Neutral grays don't get the nod from me all that often.

However, in this autumn scene of a waning sun outside of Page, Arizona, a middle-value gray with a bluish-cast works nicely as a foil to the vibrant and contrasting warms colors, both muted and intense, that tell the story.