Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Ominous skies

We have had a lot of rain this spring and summer. It rains nearly every day.  Not so good for the gardens, but it results in some pretty spectacular skies.  I live on the prairies so we have a lot of sky. Towards the end of the day, the clouds build up and darken.  Thunder rolls across the sky and lightning spikes downward in a fantastic display of power.  Funnel clouds have often been spotted this year but none have touched the ground.
I was speaking to a man who painted the most wonderful watercolor skies and he told me the secret is to put lots of paint on wet paper and then tilt the paper.  He admitted that it took a lot of practice to get it right, but when it was right it was very beautiful.  I tried that technique here, with mixed results.  I tried to darken the sky with a second layer which did not work at all.  I went in with indigo on a sea sponge and that made it a bit better. I splattered paint with a toothbrush on the foreground to add some variation and interest. So this is another painting that I have worked on fixing and tweaking rather than discarding. It's not perfect, but I like the techniques of tilting and spattering wet on wet, and will definitely try again. Nature is giving me lots of inspiration for dramatic skies this year.

5 comments:

Uuna said...

Very expressive and beautiful painting. I can see the wether and color streams so wonderfully.

Carin Winkelman said...

Clouds really are challenging aren't they. I love the darkness of the clouds you painted in contrast with the bright landscape. That's just the kind of colours you get when the sun is shining against a dark rainy sky. Nice.

Alex said...

This looks beautiful!

Deborah said...

Beautiful dark skies, I can almost hear the gathering of rain waiting to come down.

Nigel said...

Stunning, love the contrast of the light and dark.