Who doesn't love a beautiful sky

If you've seen my paintings, you know that I like painting landscapes. There are many elements that contribute to beautiful landscapes. Skies is one of those that add so much, they:
  • Broaden the range of tones available in a painting. The white of the paper can now represent the highlights only.
  • Create uniformity to your drawing composition.
  • Add an additional sense of reality to your landscape.
  • And most importantly, they add atmosphere and set the "mood" of the scene.
The sky sets the stage in a landscape painting. It's not always easy to depict skies in a convincing and expressive manner. The different types of clouds, colours and edges provide different effects of atmosphere. How clouds reflect light in the sky is worthy of long observations.
 
The most memorable landscapes almost always have a sky that is full of interest, and most often, that interest comes from clouds. When the weather forecast is a mix of sun and cloud, I like to take photos and spend time analyzing the sky.
 
Clouds are effected by light and perspective in the same way as any other large three dimensional object. They will be illuminated on the surfaces struck by the sun, and in varying degrees of shadow elsewhere. The underside of a cloud usually has the darkest shadow.
 
A large cloud will cast a large shadow on the ground. Because of the effect of perspective, cloud shadows on the ground appear as a dark band through the landscape. Exaggerating the tonal contrast caused by cloud shadows can add greatly to the drama in a painting.
 
Here are a few clouds painted recently. I'm continuing my exploration of this element.
Danielle Beaulieu's watercolour of colourful fields
 
You may want to check out my other blog with more technical aspects about skies.
 
Danielle
 

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