A drawing for a painting

Here is a 24 by 36 I started yesterday. The light was watery today, as we had high cirrus clouds. I didn't want top spoil one of my existing paintings by returning to it in anything other than full light, I started a new painting.

This is another tactic I sometimes use, particularly on larger pictures. I spent the entire first day working transparently (no white). Using a brush and pulling back my whites with a rag, I worked out the entire painting. I have tried to get as much pattern into this thing as I could. It looks a little like Chinese brush painting at this point. Scott Moore with whom I am traveling says the Chinese look is coming from the cheapo oil primed linen made by the Chi-Coms.

The beauty of working in a single color all day is that I have separated the problem of color from those of design and drawing. I like to really get my little iron teeth into the drawing before I start worrying about color and handling. It might seem a slow way to go about things, but I make the time back later, and the subsequent coloring up of the painting goes quickly. I have chased down the gremlins that would have been waiting for me with a less fastidious approach and the painting should proceed without any (or few) nasty surprises.

I did this drawing in cobalt violet. That's a good color to have at the root of my shadows, but I could have used burnt sienna or ultramarine. I would never want to do this with a cadmium red or any other color that I would have to fight later at the bottom of my shadow notes.

Above is my trusty Lincoln Continental with it's Live Free or Die plate ( # Stape) parked on the road up the Chisos mountains.