Skying in Vegas

6 x 8 oil on primed Hahnemuhle paper.  There were some pretty amazing cloud formations and monsoons happening after the duststorm.  I'm not used to being able to see such a huge expanse of land to the horizon, since the scale is very different in Hawaii.  The Nevada desert and skies seem immense.

3 x 5 oil on primed BFK.  Quick study that was part of the three-a-day.

Painting oil on paper has a long and illustrious tradition.  Corot and the other early plein air landscape painters routinely painted on thin paper which was then mounted onto canvas at a later time.  It's a great way to generate a lot of work when weight and portability are extremely important.

Skying at the Soccer Fields

 View across the Soccer Fields in Pearl City, HI; trees in bloom and clouds.

Gravel parking lot overlooking the soccer fields.

A scattered young tree, soccer fields and Waianae range in the background.

These are all 6 x 8" oil on primed paper.  This was the first "plein air by bike" outing in quite a while (longtime readers will remember that I used to do a lot of that), it hasn't been easy finding rideable roads here in Hawaii.  The soccer fields are deserted early in the morning, acres and acres of open space and sky.  Gotta get out early before it gets too hot.

Skying at the Beach

5 x 7", clouds at Bellows Beach, oil on primed Hahnemuhle Ingres paper.  Winds were strong enough to blow sand all over the painting (visible if you look close) and my palette.

6 x 8", Pyramid Beach, oil on primed Fabriano rough watercolor paper.  This storm was a real soaker.

Cloud studies

All are about 6 x 8", oil on primed paper.  These are the view out my window, more or less.

Constable is not a favorite painter of mine, but he had a great work ethic and made a practice of painting cloud studies.  He called it "skying."  He said, "It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment...The sky is the source of light in Nature, and governs everything."  You can see one of his studies on the Google Art Project here.  Such studies are of immense benefit as exercises in concentration and rapid depiction, because clouds do not stand still--especially here!