Sunday, March 15, 2015

Paint the Sky - Cumulus Clouds

Title: Cumulus Over the Hills
Size: 10 and 1/2 by 11 inches
This piece portrays some clouds floating over some hills, done in water-based oil paints.

For this assignment, I was supposed to paint an "interesting" sky and take notes on a sunset. Painting the clouds was fun, but taking notes on the sunset was definitely the highlight of this assignment.

I don't think any painting could properly portray a sunset. A sunset isn't just a palette of colors, it's an experience. The colors don't stay quite the same for any more than a second or two. Creamy oranges shift to golden oranges which change into redder tones as the blue parts of the sky bleach pale and clouds hover between lavender and peach. Birds' voices drop out one by one, and the air grows chilly as the sun drops behind the horizon. There's just too much to show in a single frame.


For my notes (done in watercolor), I barely had time to throw down a splash of paint before I would notice a shift in some part of the sky and want to capture that too. It was a rushed process, and I loved it. I was kind of surprised how many colors I ended up with in the notes, though. I was expecting maybe some oranges and blues, but there was far more than just two colors in the sky. :)

14 comments:


  1. nice coloring i really like how much effort you put into the greenness of the grass

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  2. I really love the sky in this piece of art, it looks yet so real to me and it looks simply amazing. You did an amazing job.

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  3. Oh my GOODNESS!!! I love this so much! When I saw this I thought it was your reference photo, but it wasn't! Wow this is so good. You did such a good job on the different whites and grays in the clouds and the blues in the sky. All of it looks amazing! Really great job, you should be proud of yourself cause you have talent!

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  4. I like the colors you made and the shades that mixed , good job

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  5. I like the colors you made and the shades that mixed , good job

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  6. Dear cloud-loving buddy, Keep up the good work. It's as if you captured a moment in time.

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  7. Oh my goodness! This is amazing! I love the texture of the clouds, they're amazing!!!!! And I love how you included the notes!

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  8. I really love how realistic this really looks especially with the clouds and how it actually looks like a scene from before a rainstorm and it also looks like a really nice calm and cool day that just makes the days seem even more perfect. Great Job on this painting. :)

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  9. Love this, the colors are outstanding, looks great, amazing detail thanks for sharing! Its brilliant.

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  10. Not only is the picture great, you did amazingly well graphing out and taking the science of the work and showing it! I really love how the hills are different tones and how the clouds are right between docile and ominous!

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  11. This looks amazing I really like how you did this one. I like how you were able to get in the shading of the clouds giving it a good shadow and tint to it. the texture looks great. The use of color that you used here is amazing the hills, clouds and sky look all amazing.

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  12. Woah! This is so realistic I love it everything is perfect! couldnt have done it any better great job!

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  13. Look its a photograph of some clouds- wait a second its a painting!!! Nice job on your study of all the different colors that go into this sky!! You did a good job on making the sky pop! The only thing I could say is maybe make the painting a little bit more bright, but honestly I think thats just because of the camera quality. Excellent work!

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  14. This is a very realistic drawing of the sky. I think you did a great job of painting the clouds so it looks like they have depth and that they are stretching across the sky. I love the dark blue of the sky as well and that you put a green hill in the front. The colors go really good together and it looks really nice, great job

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