I recently finished my second painting project as part of my ED Art + Design course at college.  The brief was titled "+ - x ÷" so it was pretty open to a lot of interpretation.  
I struggled at first, just experimenting with what I could do with the paint, until I accidentally created my first "Soot and Ash" painting.

I had just painted a small section of paper a nice solid black, when I decided to mask out an area in the middle and paint a thin wash of white over it.  Then I took a piece of newspaper and pressed it down over this wash.  When I peeled the newspaper and masking tape away I discovered what is now my first "Soot and Ash" painting.  
From there I thought about what this piece could represent, I decided that it had links with "-" as it involved removing paint.

As I went on to finish the first experimental half of the project I found myself creating more and more of these pieces, seeing how the wash and drying time of the paint etc. affected the finished painting.  I felt that these pieces had a very dirty, sooty feel to them and this is where I got my later theme of industry and pollution from.

As I got into the last 2 / 3 weeks of the brief I discovered the artist Hughie O' Donoghue and his work left me feeling inspired, his use of yellow seemed interesting to me and I wanted to try something similar myself.  Another artist - John Virtue - also one of my favourite artists, affected me in this project too with his use of pollution and the landscape.  
These two artists steered me more into the direction of industry and inspired my final choice of colour palette.  My "Smog" paintings reflect this inspiration clearly with the use of billowy, yet hazardous black and yellow clouds.
I experimented with adding in suggestions to a man made landscape by having chimneys peek through the smog; hard-edged shapes against more organic, blurry forms.  

My final 4 yellow "Smog" pieces show a lot of development in my painting skills as my confidence seems to be growing a little more with paint, and I feel that even though this project is now over, this is an idea I am going to continue working on for a while, playing with new colours and compositions etc. - maybe even a new subject.  Instead of air pollution maybe I should try painting water pollution too, or I could try using gouache, inks or oils.  
More new (and old) pieces will be added to my blog before I update my gallery here.  Watch this space.