My sketchbooks have become more working sketchbooks and less illustrated journals. Lots of notes and scribbles with painting plans, compositional studies, and working out motifs fill the pages. Yet every now and then I feel the need to capture a moment. I have been making an attempt to record the varying color of the sky during these winter months, which is what I set out to do yesterday. It was late in the afternoon and the light was fading fast as I sat at the table looking out our back door. With my previous sky sketches I edited out the trees, but yesterday I included the ridge on the horizon and some of the trees in our yard. Our yard is wooded with an understory of rhododendrons. There are so many trees that it is impossible to identify them all. We are used to looking through them, to see the light on the hills beyond.
Both sketches are watercolor only in a 7 x 10 Stillman & Birn Beta series sketchbook.
Just beautiful. I spent a year documenting the skies, painting en plein air from my yard for a show at the state aquarium. It was such a challenge but so rewarding. I continue to paint the skies as often as possible. Love your trees too.
ReplyDeletevery nice :) Our yard it way too small for a lot of trees, really hoping the "mini" cherry tree is really a mini one :p
ReplyDeleteThank you Elizabeth! And what beautiful expanses of sky you have out there to inspire you! That's one of the things I love about the coastal areas, so much sky.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jennifer! When we lived in town our yard was small and we knew, because we had planted them, every tree in that yard. Now here, on an acre and half, there's no telling how many trees, or where our's end and the neighbor's begin!
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