Painting Clouds

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Living, as we do, in the center of the country where the dominant feature of the landscape is the sky, we have always enjoyed painting the rich variety of clouds, sunsets and other dramatic light effects we are treated to. The vast open spaces of the prairie allow for long-distance viewing of the beautiful and sometimes dangerous, fast-moving dance of clouds.

Often the moments just before or just after a severe thunderstorm produce epic clouds for painting. After the Deluge is a pastel painting John created from one of those moments (painted from a safe vantage point!) We have diagrammed it here to show the complexity of the sky at such a dramatic moment and how to effectively recreate the three-dimensional structure of the clouds in a painting.

To see more of these paintings of homage to clouds, visit the wonderful Cloud Appreciation Society here. You will find not only John’s paintings, but those of many artists, photographers and poets who “Look Up and Wonder” (the motto of the Soc…