I'm FREE

I'm FREE

Monday, February 3, 2020

A VERY DRAMATIC SKY - watercolour step by step

I did a fairly detailed [for me] value sketch.

First wet-in-wet washes. Sky - a bit of aureolin. Beach - a mixture of quin. burnt orange and cobalt blue. 

A mixture of indanthrone, quin. burnt orange and quin. pink for the distant mountains.

Then the part that really makes the picture. I wet the sky twice, drying a bit in between, to keep the paper wetter for more time. I needed the extra time to play with the dark sky, adding more colour here, lifting there. The colours are again indanthrone, quin. burnt orange and quin. pink.

Finally I add the details of the waves to lead the eye to the focus on the lower right, and make the image actually look like a beach scene. I might have made the sky more imposing than it was in the photo, but then the painting IS about the sky. And the dark winter weather here has left me feeling somewhat "dark", too. I wish to thank Barb Thurgood for the use of here image of Black Rock Sands as reference. The painting is 8 1/2 x 14 inches framable.

Thank you so much for dropping by!

7 comments:

  1. Very dramatic! Gorgeous, this sky. Though the weather might not have been that good.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well done! The movement is intriguing. Skies aren't easy.
    Thank you. Next order of paint, I will add those colors.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for this very interesting post and so amazing sky painting !!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You make it look so easy, Kathryn. Beautiful work!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great tutorial-- thank you.
    And a beautiful painting.

    ReplyDelete