The Great Wall - stage 1

Another in my The Big Sky series this is a location in the Arches National Park in Utah called... The Great Wall. There have been some fantastic towering cumulus clouds recently where I live in Southern England and this gave me the idea for this picture. I am going to contrast the white of the towering clouds against the landscape and mesa in shadow although I am going to have the far mesa near the horizon in sunlight, at least that is the idea so far, I might change my mind tomorrow...
This is the tonal underpainting stage in which I used a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet mostly applied with a rag apart from the initial "drawing" up stage when I used a small bristle brush.
Oil on linen 30" x 20".