Rest Stop - stage 1

As I do more paintings in my The Big Sky series I am warming to this idea of choosing locations where there are signs of Man's efforts to live in these remote and often inhospitable places, sometimes one's that have failed sometimes not. In this case in the middle of nowhere on Highway 60 in New Mexico there is this Rest Stop where somebody can pull over and eat their lunch etc in the shade within a vast deserted landscape. I am interested in trying to get across these vast spaces by use of the sky above them allied to distant horizons all lit in such a way that makes a very ordinary place become somehow beautiful... kind of a hybrid of the Hudson River School and Edward Hopper!
This is the "drawing" up stage using a small bristle brush and a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin. Tomorrow I will do the tonal underpainting when I have made my final decision about what kind of sky and colours it's going to be over my breakfast coffee.