Exploring

Exploring the Atmosphere

The beginning of a new chapter in my painting

I have always been drawn to atmosphere.

Not simply the sky itself, but the feeling that exists within it—the shifting light, the weight of a storm, the quiet before something changes. As a painter, I’m interested in those moments when the landscape seems to become something more than solid ground and recognizable objects. Air becomes visible. Light becomes tangible. A distant cloud can carry an enormous sense of movement and possibility.

Lately, I have been thinking more deeply about how to paint that sense of atmosphere.

A landscape can be beautifully rendered and still feel completely still. What interests me is something harder to capture: energy. The movement of air, the accumulation of moisture, the changing light, the tension in the sky, and the way weather can transform an ordinary landscape in a matter of minutes.

That curiosity has led me somewhere I never quite expected.

I am beginning to explore the possibility of traveling west to observe, draw, and paint tornadoes.

This isn't simply a desire to photograph dramatic weather. I want to experience these storms as an artist—to observe the landscape before, during, and after a storm and make drawings and paintings directly from that experience. I want to understand what I am seeing well enough that I can translate it into marks, shapes, values, color, and movement.

To do that, I am studying.

I am learning more about clouds, supercells, wind shear, radar, storm structure, and the conditions that produce tornadoes. The more I learn, the more fascinating the visual world becomes. What might initially look like a chaotic mass of clouds begins to reveal structure and movement.

There is something exciting about bringing scientific observation and intuitive painting together.

For me, this feels like the beginning of a new chapter in my work. I am not simply looking for a new subject to paint. I am becoming deeply interested in understanding the atmosphere itself—how weather forms, how it moves, how light changes within it, and how all of that might be translated into paint.

The study has become part of the art.

I find myself looking at the sky differently already. Clouds that I might once have simply admired now make me curious. What is happening inside them? Where is the wind moving? What is the light telling me? What might happen next?

I love that feeling of being a student again—following a curiosity without knowing exactly where it will take me.

And somewhere ahead, I hope to take that curiosity west.

To sit with my sketchbook in a landscape I have never experienced before. To watch storms develop. To draw quickly, observe carefully, and perhaps stand in the presence of a tornado and try to understand what I am seeing—not just as a weather phenomenon, but as an artist.

Whether or not the journey unfolds exactly as I imagine it, the study itself has already begun.

And I am excited to see where it takes my painting.