Clouds

5/19/21 Clouds over Maple Leaf

I believe the ideal medium for capturing clouds is watercolor. They need to be painted, not drawn. Even though I haven’t sketched with watercolor in years, I still put clouds in my sketches with my “licking” technique that is essentially a variation of traditional wet-in-wet watercolor. And yet every now and then, especially this time of year when clouds seem especially spectacular, I insist on trying to capture those dynamic, amorphous shapes with pencils.

5/18/21

About a year ago, I tried it from our upstairs deck. A few days ago on my morning walk, I didn’t have a large sketchbook with me, but the clouds were so dramatic that I couldn’t resist giving them a shot in my small red Field Notes (at right). When they seem to have a solid formation rather than wispiness, they fool me into thinking that they will be easier to depict with a dry medium.

Better prepared the next day, I took my gray Stillman & Birn Nova sketchbook to Maple Leaf Park, where I knew I’d have my pick of clouds unobstructed by trees or houses. White pencil never shows up as brightly as I want it to on gray paper (top), so I wasn’t happy with this attempt, either, but I still enjoyed the challenge.