Lately, I’ve been doing a “photo to painting” post just about each month, showcasing paintings I did recently and the photo inspiration (which may or may not be old or bad photos). Going through my old photos, I found a run of photos from 2022 that were used as inspiration for my “Sky of the Day” photos in summer 2022. While I posted those in various contexts (e.g. my year 2022 retrospective), I’m not sure I ever posted the references.
As always, you are cordially invited to paint any of my photos that you wish. See the curated highlights on my Unsplash.
What was the Sky of the Day project?
This was a short-lived self-challenge I undertook in summer 2022 where I attempted to paint a sky that had occurred within the last 24 hours. I initially thought I might do it every day but I think I ended up doing it a few times a week through the summer. Although I was blogging at the time, I don’t think I ever did a retrospective for it – at least I can’t find one – so here’s my belated one!
The References & Paintings
First Day
“Sky of the day” was a project I was doing for a brief stretch in summer 2022. In this first photo, you can actually see a photo OF the photo (my iPad) along with the painting, a mini in a little Hahnemuhle cotton sketchbook I was trying out. It’s simple little sketch, but that was on purpose: I was trying to keep it low key so that I would paint on a regular basis.
Now I think I would attempt those pink highlights along the clouds’ edges, but at the time I was struggling with that kind of thing and felt that it would be better to keep it do-able.
Gradient Sky
No clouds on day 2, which initially threw me – where’s the drama with no clouds? – but I enjoyed the smooth gradient sky at dusky. This is also in the Hahnemuhle mini sketchbook. I would probably do this now with a duller blue (e.g. Indigo), not Ultramarine Blue + PBRS. I didn’t make the orange vibrant enough.
Power Lines
I forgot to do the sky of the day until near the end of dusk so I quickly did something from the window.
Big Cloud
This was also “Sky of the Day” (actually the reference was taken the same day as the one above), and also paper experimentation, in this case on a Fluid 100 sketchbook. I didn’t end up super liking the sketchbook since it was incredibly difficult to get paper out, and I tore this in the attempt. However, I managed to take this photo of it first, and I still like it! I really like the cloud shadows which had heavy use of Ultramarine Violet. The whole thing is a bit low-contrast, but then, so was the actual cloud, a bit; I was struck by the way it managed to look so dramatically sculpted despite being shades of pastel.
Rainbow
There was really a double rainbow during this project! See what happens when you look up?
To this day I do not know how to paint a rainbow in a realistic way.
This was again on the Fluid 100 block.
Blue Sky
A couple of blue sky photos to sort of inform this painting, again in the Hahnemuhle sketchbook, which uses Ultramarine Blue and Cobalt Turquoise for the sky and a mix of MANS and Ultramarine Violet for warm-gray shadows.
Single Purple Cloud
I can’t find a reference for this. I might have done it from life!
Dusk to Evening
The only reference I can find for this data doesn’t look much like the photo; I think I sort of created the interesting-shaped cloud by accident and liked it.
The days of subsequent-day paintings are over. From this point on, there’s gaps between each painting. I may not have considered the remainders official “Skies of the Day.”
A Gash of Purple
I never even uploaded this cloud because I didn’t like it much. I don’t mind it much now. It’s a bit cheesy I suppose. Again, muted/vibrant contrast might have helped.
Self-Portrait Photographing the Sky
This is interesting because it is the photo I took in the situation I painted; for the painting, I zoomed out a bit to show myself taking the picture that I used as a reference. So meta!
Real life truly seemed to me bluer and less violet than the photo, but my colors were still too bright (my old problem of using too much Ultramarine Blue!). I was and am not quite happy with the cloud shapes, but this was quite a challenging scene. I like the trees and the silhouettes.
Skies with Lines
This experiment in doing a sky as a line drawing – not an attempt to be ‘soft’ – was made for a “get out of your comfort zone” prompt in Liz Steel’s class.
I still quite like this, both the lines effect and the contrast with the wild granulating pigments I used.
Sunset Postcard
I had a new scheme by this point: I was going to make postcards and send them to people! This is the only one I ever did.
What I learned from the Sky a Day Project
I could probably have been more articulate about this if I’d documented it at the time instead of nearly two years later, but the perspective I give you now is what lasted.
There’s a good sky every day!
I just love the sky – it is known to be one of my favorite subjects. My partner makes fun of me because nearly every day when we’re out walking I say “Wow! Look at those clouds!” to perfectly ordinary clouds that are just like the clouds from the day before. This challenge just reinforced the truth that I can find joy and wonder in every sky. There’s enough variety to keep me interested! Some of these are samey, but by painting different weather conditions and times of day, there’s a lot of variation.
“One a day” challenges can help keep things low-pressure.
This was a great lesson that I took from experiences like Kolbie Blume’s 10 Day Painting the Wilderness Challenge. If you have to do a painting every day, you’re forced to keep each one to a manageable scale because you know you’re going to do a different one the next day.
Limiting myself to the past day’s sky (more or less) also removed the pressure to paint the best, biggest, or most dramatic skies, to dig through archival photos, or to question “is this sky really remarkable enough to justify painting?” Nearly every day there was a sky that I found remarkable enough to paint: that was the point. I love skies!
Challenges are fun, but give them an endpoint.
I was really raring to go for the first week of this challenge. Then I kind of drifted off, but without ever really deciding to be done.
This kind of challenge isn’t sustainable, no matter how low-pressure. “A thing a day” is hard! With no endpoint, you just end up feeling like you failed when you stop, no matter when it is. If I were to do this over, I’d give myself a set endpoint – somewhere between 7 and 30 days – so that I could maintain stamina for a particular amount of time and feel good at reaching the end.
I should do this again!
Since I did this challenge, I’ve learned a lot about painting skies – by taking tutorials from Maria Coryell-Martin and Maria Smirnova, and from just painting a lot more skies! Summer would be a great time to try this again