Working in a Series
       Often when I'm working in mixed media I work on a series of paintings that all have the same original basis -- sometimes it's a color palette, sometimes a concept, sometimes a particular medium that I want to explore.  In this instance the initial basis was collage.  I attached very dark value pieces in three different compositional formats and then began to paint.  I knew that I would select one color from the palette to emphasize in each piece, and that I intended to work with a variety of media 
including pencil, pen, pastel and acrylic (as well as 

collage with which I began.  Since these were to be entirely non-representational, I worked with temperature and value to create interesting surfaces.  Eventually, I  began to feel as though I was moving toward Armageddon -- a feeling of violent storms, volcanoes, fire.  This feeling led me to title these works Destruction I, Destruction II and Destruction III.  

 When viewing the originals it is possible to see all of the underlying marks and patterns.  This enables the viewer to follow the process from first layer to final surface.