Skyscapitos

1/29 and 1/30/22

Like almost anyone who has ever worked with color, I’m inspired whenever I see a brilliant sunrise or sunset, but I’ve only rarely attempted to sketch one (usually with watercolor). Even a fast-moving painter would be hard-pressed to capture those constantly changing hues en plein air. With colored pencils, it’s almost impossible, even for a fast sketcher like I am.

A while back I learned the term “skyscapito,” which may have been coined by the Skyscapito Appreciation Society. I don’t know much about this nature journaling group, but its members apparently sketch and paint their skies (search skyscapito with a hashtag for inspiring examples)! My introduction to skyscapitos was through Anne Kay’s Instagram feed, where she posts her lively nature journal pages. After enjoying seeing her small skyscapitos for a while, it finally dawned on me: If I make them small enough, I might actually have time to capture the colors of a sunrise or sunset!

I took advantage of the few days we enjoyed “partly sunny” weather last week to make three sunrise and one sunset skyscapitos. Sunrise, especially, is fun to catch because its timing is convenient lately: It has been coinciding with the time when I am usually making my coffee. While I wait for the coffeemaker, I can make a 2-by-3-inch sketch of the southeastern sky, then move on to breakfast.

1/31 and 2/2/22

Not wanting to bring a huge supply of colors to the kitchen, I took a simple, readymade approach: my Caran d’Ache Bicolors set. By removing two pencils that I knew I wouldn’t need for dawns and dusks, I made space in the tin for a Uni Pin brush pen and a waterbrush. The colors in the compact travel set are remarkably suitable for Seattle skies.

My new Field Notes journal would be an ideal place to put these tiny, nature journal-like sketches. Ironically, my current Sweet Tooth Field Notes notebook contains yellow paper, and I don’t like the way the sky looks greenish wherever I apply some blue. So I used a Signature for these (so much for trying to keep everything in one book!). When I eventually use a white-paper Field Notes again, I’m going to put skyscapitos in it.

A compact skyscapito kit!

Year-End Skyscapitos

 

12/22/25 sunrise, Maple Leaf neighborhood

After many consecutive days (weeks?) of gloomy, gray and wet sunrises, the dawn after the solstice brought a colorful one (at left). I think I missed the best of it by the time I got upstairs, but I was too delighted not to sketch its tail end. The other surprise was seeing how far south the sun rises this time of year (which is why I could see the colors so well). Yes, it happens every year, and yet it always surprises me!

There’s a chance for more, but looking at the weather forecast, these are likely the last skyscapitos of 2025. This is also a wrap for the Uglybook that I began on Nov. 10, 2022.

It’s the third white Uglybook I’ve filled. The others contain skyscapitos, but they also contain more randomness than this one does. When I bought the first three-pack, I was skeptical that I’d have enough uses for white Uglybooks; after all, I have plenty of high-quality sketchbooks containing white paper. I realized quickly, though, that the 80-pound paper is sufficient for the light washes I use with watercolor pencils in thumbnail-size sketches. More significantly, the inexpensive book invites small color captures of sky scenes that are changing by the second. It shouts, “Hey, we’re not making plein air paintings here! Just grab the color before it’s gone! Now!” Realizing that I did have a use for them, I eventually got a second three-pack. I’m glad I did; Uglybooks stopped making white books a long time ago, probably realizing that they didn’t need to compete in the traditional white sketchbook market.

12/12/25 sunset

Although book No. 3 contains a few random sketches, and some skyscapitos required different colored papers (like the dark blue one at right), for the most part, it’s a continuous chronology of sunrises and sunsets I’ve sketched the past three years. I appreciate that kind of continuity.

My life three years ago was very different from now. Back then, I sometimes sketched sunrises not with joyful anticipation but with dread of what the day might bring. Sometimes my sunset sketches were brief moments of respite after long days of pain and anxiety. Now I finish the book with peace and gratitude, looking forward to more skyscapitos in 2026.

Three years of sky color

Summer Skyscapitos

 

As was true last year, I made the fewest skyscapitos during the summer: I’m not awake early enough to catch sunrise, and by the time the sun goes down, I’m in the middle of a book, movie or some other evening pastime. Looking back at the few I made, though, I’m grateful that this summer’s skyscapitos include only two smoky ones.

A friend took part in the Inchies Challenge this year, sponsored by Mindful Art Studio. She made a series of watercolor paintings that were 2-inch squares. Delighted by the concept, I started thinking about how I might participate in the future – find or make a tiny sketchbook? Draw a grid of squares? Cut up a stack of small, square sheets of paper?

Then it occurred to me: Although rectangular, most of my skyscapitos are about 2 inches on the short side. (Fitting a landscape-format composition into a square would be a greater challenge than the size.) I guess I’m already doing a form of inchies!

This is the only skyscapito I have made while out 
taking a walk. Just as the sun was going down, the
moon was rising, eerily copper colored in the 
smoky sky.

Summer Skyscapitos

 

Summer was not the best season for my skyscapitos. Sunrises were too early for me, and sunsets were so late that I was distracted by evening activities. Now that the days are getting shorter again, though, I hope to sketch more notable skies.

Before fall comes, I thought I’d catch up on the few skyscapitos I did manage to capture recently. The most exciting was the supermoon on Aug. 11, the last of the year. Although I knew it was coming, I wasn’t prepared to sketch it when I suddenly saw it rising – huge and orange in the deep blue sky. I knew instantly what I needed to run and get, though: my Uglybook containing dark blue paper! I didn’t think I’d use it until this winter for nocturnes, so I was delighted to have it handy.

More disturbing than exciting was the sunset I caught on Sept. 11. I sketched it a little too early; if I’d waited longer, it would have had more brilliant purples, oranges and pinks. It was the type of spectacular sunset we are treated to only at the end of a smoke-filled day, which makes me shake my head at its terribly ironic beauty.

8/18/22 sunset and 8/30/22 sunrise

Post-Solstice Skyscapitos

 

1/8/23 dusk

Most of the skyscapitos shown here were made after the Solstice. This time of year, I have more opportunities to sketch both sunrise and sunset colors because they appear at convenient times. Although we’ve had a mostly wet, cold winter so far, occasional “sun breaks” have been brief reprieves from the gray and rain. I watch for them whenever I can.

The continually shifting bands of light and color give me a workout, but when I stick with the tiny format (no larger than 3 inches), it’s a realistic challenge.

12/22/22 and 1/2/23 sunrises

1/10/23 sunset

1/11/23 sunrise

12/15/22 Mt. Rainier at sunrise; 12/16/22 sunrise

November Skyscapitos

 

11/27/22 Dusk, Maple Leaf neighborhood

November was a good month for skyscapitos. At this time of year, both sunrise and sunset come at convenient times for making quick sketches of sky drama, and we’ve had great color almost every day.

The sketch on Nov. 27 (at right) was at dusk. Dropping fast, the sun brilliantly illuminated the front of a house I can see through my studio window (it’s one of the houses I like to sketch when I’m playing with colors or new materials). Other than clouds reflecting some of that light, everything else was already turning deep blue. The illumination lasted only a few minutes, and I was very happy to have a dark blue Uglybook at hand to do the job quickly.

Nov. 23's sunset was a Technicolor dazzler! I don't often get to use this many colors in a single sketch!

Northward

 

February sunsets

3/9/23 sunrise

It’s time to catch up on my skyscapitos from the past couple of months. The only sunrise here is from early March (at right) before we set the clocks ahead. Now the sun comes up too early for me to catch – which is more than OK with me! I love and appreciate this time of year when the days grow only longer.

Meanwhile, I’ve caught several good sundowns, which literally illustrate for me a principle that I understand intellectually, but sketching drives home the point like no science book can: As we get closer to the summer Solstice, the sun moves further and further north (relative to our Earth-centric view). When I sketch, I always look for the spot where the colors are most intense around the sun. Since my tiny skyscapitos cover a narrow area, different things get in my way as the year goes on – first a power pole, then part of a tree, and now it’s the rooftop of a house to our west. Until I began sketching sunsets at periodic intervals, I was not visibly aware of its movement across the sky.

As always, sketching teaches me things that I didn’t know I wasn’t aware of until I became aware.

February and March sunsets

3/29/23 Sunset

Spring Skyscapitos

 

2/24/22 sunset and 2/26/22 sunrise

The last time I blogged about my skyscapitos, it was back in February when it was still easy to sketch sunrise colors. Since then, the sun has been coming up too early for me, but I’ve managed to catch a few sunsets. Timewise, it should be easier to catch sunsets than sunrises, but I guess I’m occupied with other things in the evening, and I don’t think about the sky as much.

It’s interesting to see how the peak color surrounding the dusk sun moves northward as we go from February to May. I wasn’t really aware of this until I started trying to capture that color, and I noticed that different landmarks show up in the foreground of my sketches at different times of year.

3/2 and 3/6/22 sunrises

4/21/22 sunset

5/19/22 sunset

5/15/22 lunar eclipse

Although not the prettiest sketch, my most exciting skyscapito occurred on May 15. It had been overcast and raining all evening, so I had given up trying to look for the lunar eclipse. At 10:40 p.m. as I was getting ready for bed, I looked out the livingroom window one last time, and there it was – an opening in the clouds that gave me a clear view, just for a moment: The tail-end shadow of the earth passing over the moon.

5/25/22 sunset

Prime Time for Skyscapitos

 

12/26/23 Early morning

As I’ve mentioned before, this time of year, as dark and dreary as it can be, is a sweet spot for sketching sky color: I can easily catch both sunrise and sunset times. Most of these were done with my usual skyscapito media: watercolor pencils and a white Uglybook (I hardly ever use a white one otherwise). Based on where I can see the sky colors most easily, I usually use Caran d’Ache Bicolors for sunrises and Museum Aquarelles for sunsets. In a couple cases I tried dark-colored pages – a convenient shorthand for capturing the predominant sky hues.

And as dark and dreary as it can be, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much color the sky offers even during the worst of winter. All I have to do is remember to look for it.

Recently I grumbled about how little nature sketching I did last year, but I'm fairly consistent about sketching skyscapitos year-round. I guess that counts as nature sketching, doesn’t it?

On Jan. 15, I was lucky enough to catch both sunrise and sunset.

The Skyscapito Sweet Spot

 

This time of year is the sweet spot for conveniently sketching colorful skyscapitos: Sunrise is late enough that I can easily catch it before breakfast (sometimes even after); sunset is early enough that it doesn’t interfere with dinner prep. And despite quite a bit of rain, we’ve had some particularly stunning sunsets this month.

Another sketcher had commented on how disappointing her “feeble attempt” is at trying to capture the drama of sunrise. I certainly concur every time I attempt these sketches – it’s hubris, really, for mere mortals to think we can somehow emulate the splendor of nature. But it’s also human nature (or artist’s nature?) to try anyway.