Clouds

I've been enjoying my painting journey, and one of the things that I find the most interesting to paint, and in some ways something that I find the easiest, is skies.

One of the things that many of the online tutorial videos will tell you about landscapes is to be careful with the tendency to want to paint fluffy white clouds, as these can be unrealistic and trite.

Which I suppose can be true, but on the other hand, every time I look out my window, I see bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Maybe it's just the time of year...

Fluffy clouds out the front door.

Fluffy white clouds out the front

Fluffy clouds out the back, on a different day. It seems like I could take a picture like this every day this spring (at least, every day that it isn't overcast and raining, which is most of them).

More fluffy white clouds out the back

We also get some very dramatic skies in the early morning. This one was this morning. Strange how the mind adapts based on what is in your conscience at the moment, but I looked at this scene off the back deck of my house, with a cup of coffee in hand and Ryder at my side, and thought "naples yellow on the horizon, a touch of phthalo blue in the sky, and a lot of Payne's gray...bits of titanium white in the gaps in clouds to make them glow". Odd.

April 29, 2020, 7:55am

Cerulean blue, phthalo blue, Payne's gray, naples yellow, titanium white...

Feb 19, 2020, 6:59am (with interior light reflection)

Without going back and looking it up, I think the below was a marching band competition at Penncrest High School (back behind the old Granite Run Mall). I think I have to try to paint this one, without the football field in the foreground. Maybe put a lake with reflections in the foreground instead...

Fire in the Sky - October 12, 2019, 6:30pm

If nothing else, going through some of these pictures is a good reminder that despite the current situation, there is still beauty in the world.