Cloudscape 2 - stage 2

I have now painted in the background sky and will paint in the single dark cloud tomorrow. I have put some of the sky colour over it so that it shows through in places through the darker cloud as it is important that the darker cloud should not look too heavy in the sky. 
I'm not sure yet if this painting is heading where I want this series to go but hopefully each one should get me nearer!
Oil colours used were: Zinc White, Warm White, Lemon Yellow, Kings Blue Light and Permanent Orange - all Michael Harding.

Cloudscape 2 - stage 1

First version

Now that I am back from Illuxcon I am getting back to some painting. This is the second in the series of small sky paintings- a single dark cloud against a white streaked blue sky. Ha! I'm looking at it now and wondering wether to take out the landscape and just have the sky...I think I will! 
OK here is the new version...no landscape. I want them to be more abstract with no narrative context so the landscape had to go.
Stage 1 and 1a were painted in with just a rag using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and turpentine.

Second version

Cloudscape 1

First in a series of mainly small paintings of skies and clouds with a view to entering the more successful ones in some "Fine Art" competitions which I haven't done for some time. I don't want to paint in just one generally specific genre like Imaginative Realism but rather to work in other areas too like I was a few years ago; I don't want all my eggs in one basket as it were.
I originally had an American water tower breaking the horizon when I was "drawing" it up but I  painted it out to make the painting less specific with little narrative content so that it is more about colour, mood and composition.
Oil on Winsor & Newton Smooth Canvas 16" x 12".

Cloudscape 1 - stage 2

This was the first colour pass on the painting and used mixes of Lemon Yellow, Permanent Orange, Ultramarine Violet, Kings Blue Light and Ultramarine Blue all by Michael Harding.

Cloudscape 1 - stage 1

This will be a series of mainly small paintings of skies and clouds that I want to paint that are not going to IX as most of my work has been this past year. All the ones I'm taking are in the USA or will be soon for the show next week in Reading PA. These paintings will be trying things out and generally hoping my skies improve as I go through the series. This work will be aimed at a more "Fine Art" audience and intend to enter some of them in competitions etc as I do not want to be known purely for my Imaginative Realism work although without that work I would not have come to this point so each side of my work informs the other.
I originally had an American water tower silhouetted against the sky but I wanted the painting to be less specific with little possible narrative content so that it it is more about colour, tone and composition...so the tower was painted out.
This stage was painted with a rag using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and turpentine.

The Cloud Palace

A companion piece to "Al Zimbra", this is another small painting centred around sky and clouds. In addition to changing it's title from "Palace of the Sky Vizier" I also changed my mind about the colours after the tonal underpainting and changed from warm colours like the earlier painting to more of a yellow/violet complementary palette with a blue/green sky. I also changed my mind at the "drawing" stage when I changed from a floating city to a more Arabian Nights Eastern palace although I have kept the details a bit more indistinct to be able to merge with the cloud.
This is another small painting that I intend to take to IX in mid-October. Oil on Winsor & Newton Smooth Canvas 16" x 12".
There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Palace of the Sky Vizier - stage 3

Actually I  might change the title to "The Cloud Palace" when it's finished...
Today I pretty much finished the clouds and made a start on the floating palace. The colours are mixes of Naples Yellow, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Cadmium Yellow Light, Yellow Lake Deep, Permanent Orange, Warm White, Manganese Violet, Kings Blue Light and Phthalocyanine Turquoise, all Michael Harding, and Naples Yellow Reddish Extra by Old Holland.

Palace of the Sky Vizier - stages 1 & 2

Stage 1

A companion piece to "Al Zimbra", this is another small painting centred around sky and clouds. It was originally conceived to be in warm colours like the earlier painting but I changed my mind after the tonal underpainting and chose more of a Yellow/ Violet complementary palette although there is a fair amount of blue too.
I changed my mind too at the "drawing" stage when I changed it from a city to an Eastern Palace so that it was more Arabian Nights than sci fi as it could have looked.
I am again working on Winsor & Newton Smooth Cotton Canvas as the picture is quite small, 16" x 12".
The first stage was "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet mixed with Liquin. The second stage was the same paint mix thinned with turpentine and applied with a rag.

Stage 2