Paint a sky to complement your landscape
Winston Oh recommends a simple wet-in-wet technique for painting skies in watercolour along with tips for a successful composition
Winston Oh recommends a simple wet-in-wet technique for painting skies in watercolour along with tips for a successful composition
The sky is an intrinsic part of the landscape and may occupy from a quarter to a half of the composition, but we can pay less attention to it than we should. This may be because we are reluctant to attempt an elaborate sky composition that could detract from the rest of the landscape, or the sky is too complex, or it is a plain grey; or it may not be suited to your composition. Lastly, if you decide to improvise, you may not have the confidence or the technique to make it work.
A relatively simple and quick technique for skies involves painting on a wet paper surface and allowing the pigment to diffuse naturally. When dry, this process results in soft fluffy cloud edges. It should take no more than five minutes, because the water on your painting surface will start to dry and the technique will not work as well. In addition, pigment of a different colour or a stronger mix of the original colour can be laid onto the still damp first wash and allowed to diffuse naturally without sharp edges.
Compose your sky
Get ideas for the design from (a) what you see outdoors (b) from photographs (c) invent a sky to suit your proposed landscape. Ideally, paint a sky that is in front of you. If it makes a good composition, sketch it quickly. If the sky is vast and full of features making it hard to choose which part to paint, take a photograph and select the part of the sky you like at your leisure. Alternatively, a small viewfinder is invaluable for finding a suitable section from a large sky.
Although clouds are mostly horizontal and lozenge-shaped, they are not regular in outline, and usually fluffy, like cotton wool. Some clouds may be diagonal, which makes for more interesting sky compositions. When placing clouds at the periphery of the composition, it is best to depict a part of the cloud so that its outline tapers towards the middle of the composition, thus leading the eye inwards. Avoid leading the eye out of the picture with a cloud tapering to the edge of the frame.
Planning your sky is like composing a landscape. Think of visual leads in from the periphery, a visual centre of focus somewhere in the middle third, and apply aerial perspective when painting clouds receding into the distance. Include some variation in tone in various parts of the sky to make it more interesting.
Painting process
Wet the paper using a large loaded brush, recharging as required, down to the horizon. Tip the paper/board about 10 degrees to allow water to flow down evenly, and avoid puddling. Mop up excess water with tissue paper – better wet enough than not. Remember paper dries quite quickly in dry conditions, especially outdoors. Top up with more water if necessary.
Without delay load the brush with paint. Mix paint and water in small steps: add paint by dipping the brush tip in the paint, mix on the palette, add more dips of water, or paint, until you have a fully loaded brush of moderately strong pigment. Judge this by brushing on spare paper. This first brush load of paint could be sufficient for the whole sky painting because the water on the paper will supplement what you brush on, thus keeping the brush moist.
Vary the blue tones in the sky to make it more interesting and suggest tonal recession. If you plan it so that the strongest blue is near the top of the composition, as you work your way down the colour will become progressively lighter in tone with each brushstroke.
Clouds will be represented in the sky painting by white unpainted spaces (negative shapes). Therefore when painting the blue parts of the sky, remember that you are painting around the cloud shapes and move your brush appropriately. When you are creating a cloud, allow for more white space than intended in order to allow some diffusion of the blue paint towards the white space.
In the bottom half of the sky you might wish to make space for smaller cloud(s). This will add a dimension of visual recession. In example one, on page 56, I have indicated a couple of smaller, flatter clouds, followed by impressionistic horizontal brushstrokes suggesting clouds receding into the distance.
EXAMPLE ONE White Clouds in a Blue Sky, watercolour, 7310½in (18326.5cm)
Before starting to paint, it is advisable to make a small pencil sketch of the proposed sky composition for guidance. Here I used one brush, one colour, and a pot of water.
A
Wet the paper surface fairly liberally with clean water using a large brush. If the paper is tilted head-up by about 10 degrees during the wetting, excess water will drain off without puddling. With a fully loaded brush (size 10 or 12) start where you want the strongest tone to be
B
Move to an adjacent area with progressively lighter tone – the water on the paper dilutes the pigment as you proceed. The stronger tones in the sky are usually in the upper half, diminishing down towards the horizon. You may need to recharge the brush, but make sure that the pigment is less concentrated than the first brushload. The outline of a cloud is irregular and remember that you are rendering a negative shape (white puffy cotton wool). Do not worry about stray edges because subsequent diffusion of the paint at the edge of the clouds will soften and smooth out any irregularities, even the odd sharp, angular bits
C
Just stick generally to the planned shapes in your sketch. Allow a little more white space for each cloud to compensate for the diffusion of the blue paint. For example, if you had a cloud two inches wide at the beginning, you might be left with an inch-wide cloud after the diffusion. To create an illusion of clouds receding into the distance, use the lower third of your sky composition to paint narrow clouds becoming progressively flatter towards the horizon. This can be depicted quite loosely with a few horizontal brushstrokes
EXAMPLE TWO Three compositions of blue skies and white clouds, each 7310½in (18326.5cm)
Although clouds are mostly horizontal, some diagonal shapes will make the composition more interesting. Note that the cloud edges are entirely irregular (A). Avoid placing pointed ends of clouds at the side of the composition, as they will lead the eye out (B). Do make the effort to create smaller, flatter clouds towards the horizon, as they add depth and recession to the composition (C)
CLOUD SHADOWS EXAMPLE THREE
Three compositions of white clouds with shadows in a blue sky, each 7310½in (18326.5cm)
In this example shadows are placed underneath the clouds to give them volume and shape. The shadow colour is a mixture of French ultramarine and burnt umber.
First wet the middle of the cloud with a smaller brush, then paint the shadow from the lower edge of the cloud upwards, till you meet the wet bit and allow the paint to diffuse into the wet edge. You may, if you wish, soften the bottom edge of the cloud with a damp small brush
EXAMPLE FOUR Blue Sky, Grey Clouds, watercolour, 7310½in (18326.5cm)
This is a more striking sky, using the same basic technique, but with the introduction of another colour for grey clouds and discreet crisp cloud edges. The former is a mixture of French ultramarine with light red. The latter results from not wetting small selected areas of the paper. Wet the rest of the paper surface as before and paint the blue sky until it meets the dry bits of paper. Thereafter, the grey clouds are painted but not meeting the blue wash. There is some diffusion in the lower-right corner owing to their proximity to each other. Note that the grey wash in the upper-left corner is bluer whereas the bottom grey wash contains less blue. The upper-right corner has a very dilute grey wash
Winston Oh Is a past student of James Fletcher-Watson and John Yardley. He is an elected member of the Pure Watercolour Society and is represented in the Singapore National Collection. Winston has exhibited in the UK, Switzerland, Singapore, Sydney and London, and teaches at Dedham Hall. www.winstonoh.com