Saturday, August 19, 2006

Failing Clouds 101

Oh dear...my first attempt at clouds with water color crayons and Inktense pencils. Early this morning traveling down a local highway I saw this amazing huge thundercloud with this brilliant light from the sun around its edge. It had a dark line as storms frequently do on the bottom edge.
But this doesn't even come close to what I saw. I know why I have avoided landscapes...clouds are HARD...at least to me.
Should I be started with something simpler? Is it my media? Are they easier with watercolor paints? Is it the composition or all of the above.
Frustrated but determined in Seabrook, TX where it is thundering right now. Posted by Picasa

4 comments:

Teri said...

Wow, I think you have captured these thunderheads just wonderfully!! We are our own worst critics.

Margaret McCarthy Hunt said...

Like your composition....but hmm well you asked....I had a friend who was painting the same kind of thunderclouds so we started looking for them...the ones we saw were white and purple on top and yellow...with flecks of those colors as high lights ...also grey...black is NOT your friend...use purple and blue and even brown if you want blacks...or mix them altogether to get shadows....and you can use if for greys too...usually shadows toward the bottom and highlights around the edges...I know sounds crazy right....fog gives me fits...I just think about it...at least you tried...

suzanne cabrera said...

I think the composition is great. I really like how large the sky is and how the clouds are off center. I haven't attempted this challenge yet, so I'm not sure that I am the best to offer advice... However, I think that the contrast between the bright blue sky and dark clouds is what is making you perceive it as being off....however, if this is the way it was, this is the way it was. I don't know about you, but I'll often look at the sky and think, if I were to paint that, it wouldn't look real. Perhaps this was just one of those times.

Nel Jansen said...

Hi Kay:
You aren't either failing at clouds 101, these are a wonderful beginning. I'll bet if you took your Inktense and went back in with some of Karen's suggestions, well...it would just pop! Me, I would further darken the bases of the cloud groups, and let the very bottom bounce against the tree line (with darkness), and soften with dark some of the edges, and see if that helps.