Watercolor Painting - Skies in Winter.
The majority of watercolor artists enjoy painting in the warmer months of the year. And it’s hardly surprising when you consider the profusion of strong fresh colors and deep shadows all round them. In parks, gardens and landscapes sizzling beneath blue summer skies with wispy or billowing clouds overhead, it’s easy to find subject matter wherever you look.
Of course it’s also very pleasant to sit under the shade of an oak tree painting an old weathered barn surrounded by green fields and blue hills or sketching couples deep in conversation over a cappuccino from under the canopy of a pavement café.
Most artists stay outside to continue painting with the coming of Fall. This is always a favorite time of year for artists. The closely related harmonious colors of reds, yellows and oranges predominant in this season, if used carefully, will always produce paintings with a sense of peace and harmony.
Alternatively, if those colors are used to create a landscape which contrasts beneath a crisp blue sky - the effect can be more intense. This is because orange and blue are complementary colors (i.e. directly opposite each other on the spectrum) and as such sing out against each other.
Unfortunately they then go into hibernation during the Winter months. And that’s a shame because there are so many wonderful scenes outdoors to enjoy painting.
Wintry skies
The first thing to notice with the onset of winter is the impact that the changing skies have on the appearance and atmosphere of the landscape below. You may think it strange to single out the skies from a painting, after all it’s an integral part of the landscape, but it is necessary to understand that they are not governed by the same rules as the more solid features of the landscape.
For a start the clouds are continually changing shape as well as moving into and out of your vision. But more importantly the sky provides the source of light and that has the single greatest effect on the outcome of your painting. The warm and cool colors and the quantities of each used establishes the overall feel of the painting, and gives us a clue as to the time of day and the prevailing weather conditions.
Looking at color we notice that clear skies in summer in a hot country will be more of a warm blue (like Cobalt Blue), leaning towards violet, and fairly dark in tone. A winter sky in a temperate zone will be a paler, cooler blue (say Coeruleum).
Painting dramatic skies will challenge your watercolor painting skills to the limit and will require a lot of practice with the many different techniques available to you if you want to create them with any authenticity. You will be frustrated at times, but also, with the right frame of mind, i.e. you’ll have fun trying no matter what the outcome, you’ll soon discover that it will bring you lots of pleasure. And success won’t be far behind!
Generally speaking, when you paint a sky, look at it very carefully. You will notice that it tends to get lighter in value as you get closer to the horizon. This is called aerial perspective and is due to the greater amount of atmosphere through which we’re looking.
This is more noticeable with clear skies and in fact by ignoring this rule with more dramatic cloud-filled skies it’s possible to give the sky a more threatening look. Very useful if that is the effect you’re after in your painting.
Other exceptions are when looking towards cities that emit polluted air or over the sea. Here a darker band of color at the horizon is formed by particles in the moist atmosphere.
To record the effects of the sky before the light and mood changes the painter has to work very quickly.
The British painter John Constable (1776-1837) understood the importance of the sky in landscape painting and would make endless sketches in quick succession to use as reference in later paintings.
Even quick pencil sketches showing the volume of cloud formations with written notes could be a useful record for later use.
You will notice when painting skies that the more amorphous and larger shaped clouds tend to congregate at the top of the picture and become more condensed and stretched the closer they get to the horizon. This of course is what gives your painting a sense of depth.
It’s called linear perspective and compliments aerial perspective (colors getting cooler in the distance) that I mentioned earlier.
It is a good idea when first painting to keep your white clouds crisp at the edges and soften the others. And of course – practice!
The most atmospheric skies to study that work well in paintings occur late afternoon and early morning when the sun is low in the sky and shadows are long.
Painting Clouds
Watercolor is the perfect medium to capture both the ethereal nature of clouds whilst at the same time suggesting their solid appearance. And those accidents that can mar other parts of your painting can often give a wonderful effect to a cloud formation and can be exploited to great effect.
Clouds can often be the very subject matter of a painting and will give it mood and atmosphere. They can also be used to balance shapes in the foreground or middle distance, such as trees or hills. By repeating some of the colors in the clouds back into the landscape a better harmony is achieved throughout the painting as a whole. The ideal opportunity to do this is if you have any water in the landscape in which to paint reflections.
It’s important to include the horizon, however simple, in your painting to give a scale to the sky.
Skies can be difficult to recreate from memory so it’s always a good idea to keep a record of interesting ones in a special sketchbook for future reference. Many a painting of a flat landscape has been saved by a well executed sky.
Photographs of course are an excellent way of referencing every sort of cloud formation.
Cloud colors (not just gray)
Although the colors present in clouds may look random, there is a certain amount of logic to painting them successfully. What’s essential to consider is where the sun is and what the surrounding colors are.
In early morning scenes, when the sun is low in the sky, the cloud can be bathed in yellows and pinks, browns and violets, with a wonderful golden edge closest to the sun.
At midday, when the sun is high in the sky they will be mainly white with an underside of blue-grey or violet as it takes on some of the blue of the sky itself. If it were lower down in the sky it would reflect less of the blue and have a browner tinge.
Cloud formations
There are many different types of cloud formation. It’s not necessary to know the names of them all but it will be very useful to know how they differ from each other in shape and structure if you want to be convincing in your execution of them. Here are the main types of cloud to be comfortable in painting successfully:
Wispy (Cirrus) clouds
Clouds form at different levels and as a result they are perceived as having different tones and colors. The high wispy clouds that scoot across the sky at a fast pace creating delicate, feathery plumes are sometimes known as mare’s tails.
Painting tips
Saturate your paper with clear water (this is essential to give your sky luminosity)and then apply a graded wash, wet-into-wet using Cobalt Blue with a touch of Permanent Rose added at the top of the paper to give more body to the sky. Before the wash has dried use a flat brush to lift color out from the sky in long graceful strokes. To lift longer thinner lines use the thin edge of the brush.
Alternatively, dampen the whole area and wash in your blue leaving areas of white space for the clouds. Remember to leave more white space than you ultimately want because the blue will spread over the damp surface quite a lot. Experiment!
This type of sky is used to best effect when you don’t want to distract the eye from the landscape but at the same time don’t want a flat uninteresting blue sky either.
Fluffy (Cumulus) clouds
They appear in clumps on days with a strong blue sky when you can expect clear weather. They have flat bottoms and cauliflower tops with clearly defined edges and are useful in suggesting distance by simply painting them getting smaller as they drop down lower towards the horizon.
These shapes form exciting contrasts between the dark base of the clouds and the sparkling top that is bathed in harsh sunlight. These ‘fluffy’ clouds can add a sky of all manner of shapes sizes and contrasts to your painting.
Painting tips
Paint a very pale wash of Raw Sienna across the sky. Paint the blue sky French Ultramarine wet-into-wet around the cloud shape you want. The creamy color of the background is the shape of the cloud. The shadow of the cloud is then painted in using Payne’s Gray and just a touch of Alizarin Crimson.
Cloudy Days (Stratus)
Stratus is Latin for ‘layer’ and as the name suggests they form a horizontal blanket in the sky, albeit one with holes in it. As a result you can often see the sun’s rays bursting through the gap.
This of course gives wonderful patterns of light and shade right across the landscape which are very useful to a painter in both defining the shapes below as well as breaking up large areas of color. Shadows add excitement and variety to your paintings.
Painting tips
Make the clouds in the foreground above you stronger in color and tone with more contrast than those nearer the horizon. Also make the size of the clouds larger in the foreground getting smaller and flatter in the distance.
Stormy (Cumulonimbus) Clouds
These are the ominous thunder clouds - vertical pillars of dense cloud flattening out at the top like an anvil. They are the portents of rain or snow and are the darkest and heaviest cloud of formations.
Painting tips
Be careful not to make these clouds too dark in your paintings. They should always appear lighter than the landscape below because the light source is behind them after all.
Painting Mist and Rain
Watercolor has to be the best medium for portraying the soft, subtle misty skies and the damp tones of falling rain. These wonderful wet-weather effects are best approached with a delicate palette, but that doesn’t mean using just grays. You have to use a very controlled range of subdued colors with very little tonal contrast.
This applies to the landscape as well as the sky otherwise you’ll lose all harmony in the painting. What you want to achieve is more or less monochromatic, but that doesn’t mean it has to be dull and boring.
Take a look at J.M.W.Turner’s (1775-1851) paintings of misty scenes and you’ll see how a master usues subtle and restrained colors – never just grays.
If the wintry scene was in the early morning when the sun was just trying to break through the mist, you would use a tonal range of golden yellows to capture the mood.
Although the scene is generally subdued with very little detail it is still necessary to add a stronger foreground to give both depth and body to your painting. Otherwise there is a tendency for it to look too wishy-washy.
Painting tips
Possibly the best way to begin a misty morning painting is to wet the whole paper and begin painting from the top, building up the layers from distance to foreground gradually increasing the strength of your paint. By the time you reach the bottom of your paper your image will be stronger giving the painting more realism.
To add more interest to your paintings you could use different types of texture such as a variety of brushstrokes, spattering or sponge painting.
Conclusions
These are of course general rules to bear in mind when painting, but the secret really is to look carefully at the sky in front of you. Consider how the sky, landscape, time of day and weather conditions create an overall mood. Then be selective about which elements you put into your painting. Your goal should be simplicity, balance and an overriding harmony.
Having said that, these conditions seldom stay the same for long. But don’t try to change your painting to keep up with them or you’ll end up confused or frustrated with a muddy mess.
It’s best to keep the brushwork loose, your colors simple and act quickly. Then leave it!
You'll enjoy a lot of great information in this report but remember our larger Painting Ebook "Watercolor Paintings How To (Quick & Easy Tricks & Techniques)" with Bonus Offers also covers these points and so much more in greater detail.
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To your success,
Roger Berry
Fellow Artist
