Painting a stormy sky

This week in art class we explored how to paint a stormy sky. What fun that was! We worked so wet that the paint just kind of did its own thing.

We pushed ourselves to work quickly and take the following steps together:

First we penciled in lightly where we wanted the horizon line. Then everyone added in rocks/mountains or any details that were desired.

We used the following colors: Payne's Gray (or Neutral Tint), Thalo Blue and Burnt Umber.

Using a large flat brush, we mixed up 4 shades of color on out palettes. One of the colors was a strong wash of the burnt umber with  Thalo blue.

We turned our paper upside down so that the rocks and water were at the top and painted against the rocks and worked our way down (upside down to the top of the sky) We started off darker against the rocks and lightened as we went by adding more water.

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We then splashed in some burnt umber for warmth and added in spots of pure thalo blue.

Using a damp, flat brush we flopped it around on the paper to lift out some whites. We kept washing the brush to get rid of the paint that we picked up. This could also be done with a tissue.

It's a good idea to add in a little bit of dimension to your clouds at this point to darken them up underneath a bit and give them some weight and depth.

Now the exciting part was next. At the top of the sky, boldly paint in some darks. Use a lot of pigment because it will dry much lighter then it is.

We let the sky dry and used Payne's Gray mixed with Burnt Umber to dash in the rocks scraping them with a palette knife to give some interest.

Next we started off dark in the foreground of water and lightened up as we went towards the horizon line. After it dried we added in some swipes of waves or pulled down a bit of the rock color for reflections. Gotta say, I want to explore this more and get better at it. It would be a fun thing to do while playing music on a rainy day!