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 This is a sketch done at the Sweetwater Wetlands Park on Christmas day. It was a beautiful day with high clouds coming and going. I was looking across the wetlands at the distant trees on the horizon and the gray toned paper gave the impression of an overcast sky. This sketch was done with Derwent inktense watercolor blocks and a brush pen on 5 x 7 watercolor paper in 5 or 10 minutes. The first painting from this sketch took several hours.

 I took this picture at the end of the first session. It's done with oil and cold wax on an 11 x 14 canvas panel from the sketch above. It looks nothing like the sketch but once I got started I couldn't stop.  The painting process told me what to do.  I liked what was developing and since the original location sketch was intended to be a reminder, a jumping off place, I jumped off.  In the process of working from a sketch done several weeks before, I re-imagined the lighting to make it a gray, overcast sky. I was looking at the atmosphere of the distant trees in the sketch which was showing more than was actually there that day (I'm not very good at this sketching thing) I liked the moodiness and the vagueness of the sketch because in this instance, I was able to translate the sketch into a completely different mood than what the actual weather was showing me. It makes working from life drawings more fun when the preliminary work sparks my imagination.  Instead of trying to use photos to create a mood or copy the exact scene it's way more fun to make it up!. It also means I can stare at this same sketch again some time and come up with an entirely different picture.  Maybe next week!

 Here is the final painting I reworked the clouds and lightened the middle ground and added more color in several place.  I like the moodiness of this piece and it's part of a series I'm working on based on more sketches and location paintings from the Sweetwater Wetlands Park. here is a link to the painting on my other  website