Sky Wash 5

Sky Wash 5
Watercolour on Paper
26cm x 18.5cm (10.25" x 7.25")

This is the last and most complex of the simple sky demonstrations from John Lovett’s Splashing Paint DVD.

The sky starts with a watery dirty yellow wash in the middle of the paper. While this is still wet, grey is added to the lower part of the sky and blue is added to the top. Some of the yellow and some clean paper is left showing in the middle to form the brightest part of the clouds. The area around this bright area is then blotted with a crumpled paper towel to create the clouds.

After this first wash is dry, the bottom of the sky is glazed with blue to make it seem further away. Darker blue is added to the top to create some stronger edges on the clouds and some dark grey is added to strengthen the shadows in the bottom of the clouds.

Once the sky is dry, the foreground is added to give the sky some context.

This was a difficult sky to paint - the version on this post is is my third attempt. Making the clouds seem fluffy and cloudlike was particularly tricky.

My next wash experiment will be to paint some flat and graded washes. Then I will move on to some more skies from programmes on the Painting and Drawing channel.