Floating in the Blue

Mixing Sky Colors in Oil

“How sweet to be a cloud floating in the blue.”
A. A. Milne

Autumn Cottonwoods 12 x 16” Oil Howard Friedland

But which blue? Painting a beautiful blue sky can be a challenge. Changing atmospheric conditions, time of day, time of year—all can create nuanced, or sometimes dramatic, variations in the color of blue of the sky. For the landscape painter, learning the characteristics of available blue pigments is essential. We asked two master landscape artists, Howard Friedland and George Van Hook about what they reach for when they begin to block in a sky and to show us some examples in their oil paintings.

Howard Friedland - https://www.howardfriedland.com

Teton Grandeur 24 x 36” Oil Howard Friedland