Sky Painting

Yesterday's painting was an example of a largely foreground painting of a beach.  Today I decided to show how a sky painting could be emphasized.

I started on dry paper to illustrate how a large space could control the viewer's eye path.  The horizon line must necessarily be low so the largest shape would be the sky area.  I painted the blue area, alternating from the overhead ultramarine blue and transitioning to a cooler thalo blue and then the flatter cloud areas near the horizon line.  I came back in and defined the clouds with warmer shadows on the underside of the clouds and then working up towards the top of the cloud with neutral grays.  Some were softened and others were left with hard edges.

The water was just a wet into wet, gradated wash so as not to draw you attention down to the water area.

The contrast area near the lighthouse was simply painted as a silhouetted shape.