As an artist, part of the fun (and some of the frustration) of creating a painting such as this is that even though you plan the thing out and think you know what you want it to be, the painting itself may seemingly have other plans. If I were a painter-savant I could get it right on the first try, but unfortunately that is not the case. That is part of the reason why I have so many preparatory steps in my workflow: they help me to figure out what I don't want just as much as they help me to figure out what I do want.

My original plan for The Stand involved a red color scheme, which I thought would add excitement to the image. I created the color study as such, and it seemed as if that scheme would work well. As I started working on the actual painting, however, I began to see that the red scheme was, in fact, ineffective. The key points in the painting ? the flesh tones, the blood and the rudder of the SPAD ? all contained red tones of varying strength. To make the entire painting red would be to lose the emphasis of those key points. I decided that a yellow ochre scheme would work better. This would not only strengthen the color of the natural landscape, but it would allow the key red tones to really come out. Also, in color psychology, yellow is an "anxious" color which puts people on edge - perfect for this subject!

Another change that I made was to the smoke plume coming from the burning BZ35 behind the hill. In the study, the plume was smaller and did not have enough impact. It seemed like an afterthought compared to the other elements of the painting. For the actual painting, I made the plume much larger and brought it back behind Frank's head. This really helped to tie that background element to the figure and the airplane in the foreground.

Other minor adjustments included a slight repositioning of both the SPAD and the figure. In the end, all of these changes really made for a strong and exciting image!