I began this painting with white, parchment, and unbleached titanium, blending them together with a palette knife as I covered the whole canvas.
Then I used the knife to apply a few broad sweeps of medium magenta, pyrole orange, and Paynes gray, being careful to let these colors rest on the suface of the underpainting.
After cleaning my knife, I began to scrape off the top coat of paint, and to blend the top coat with the underpainting colors. As I worked, I stepped back often to see how the composition was taking shape.
I left a lot of the light colors showing through in the center of the canvas, and blended the gray into the background along the edges.