It's All About the Sky!

 

Seaside Villa
Watercolor 11" x 15" Mats to 16" x 20"

In my painting above, Seaside Villa, the emphasis is on the sky! In this painting, it appears that sunlight is trying to break through a gap in the heavy clouds illuminating the little cluster of buildings on the cliff top. Notice how the color of the sky differs on the right and left sides of the painting helping to create the storm clouds and imply ilumination behind the clouds.


Watercolor tip: How to paint the sky
Mix your sky washes before you being to paint. You will be working wet on wet so that the colors will flow and mix easily together.

I used the following colors for the sky: cadmium red, cobalt blue, a mix of these two colors, Paynes gray, and sepia.

Use a large round brush to paint in the sky.

Place your first wash of a diluted cadmium red in the lower sky.

Drop in some colbalt blue at the top of the sky, leaving some of the paper white.

Add a mix of the two colors and paint in cloud shapes wet in wet on the left and right side of the paper.

Use the point of the brush to paint in smaller clouds lower down.

Paint dark clouds using Payne's gray to create a stormy look on the lower part of the sky behind the buildings. Drop in a little sepia.

Spray a mist of water on the sky if it is getting too dry to work well.

Lift some areas of white shaping the clouds using a tissue.


Clouds can be an interesting part of a painting.....sometimes the painting is really all about the sky!

Happy Painting!
Karen