Cool and Cloudy

We don't usually have dramatic looking skies here in Southern California.  Most of our days are sunny and when we do get rain, we rarely get really cool looking clouds.  I have taken a lot of cloud pictures as I've traveled and now I want to do a series of paintings featuring the sky as the focal point.

Today is a rainy day (one of the few we've had this year) so it seems appropriate to post this painting.  Of course, our sky is just gray, but I can pretend that it looks like this one.  I'm just really happy that we are getting some much needed rain.  

This is painted on 300# Arches cold press paper.  I'm going to have to crop some of the top because of that annoying watermark that they use on their paper.  It's so maddening!  I do like the way this paper works for wet into wet painting though.  I soaked it and then played with the sky until I was happy with the result.  Then I let it dry before painting the ground and trees.  That small area was painted wet into wet also.

Cool and Cloudy

Image size 8" x 30"

Watercolor

Stormy Low Country

In May, I visited some friends in Charleston, South Carolina and I painted this from one of the hundreds of photos I took while I was there.  Of course, in the photo, the sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful blue.  We went to a plantation which had really beautiful grounds and this was one of the views.  The day before, there was a tropical storm watch and a threat of a hurricane - all very exciting/scary so this is my artistic combination of the nice view and the stormy weather.   I think I will also paint the scene with the sun shining, as it is in the photo, later this week.

Charleston is such a beautiful city with such charming people.  I really had a wonderful time and I look forward to painting more of the local scenes and visiting there again some day.

Stormy Low Country
Image Size 6" x 6"
Oil