When I’ve previously tested color mixes for blue skies, I’ve focused on the contrast between a more violet-blue zenith and a more green-blue horizon. But are there other contrasts to think about?
I’ve been thinking about three kinds of contrast in blue skies:
- Hue (violet-blue zenith, green-blue horizon)
- Value (darker zenith, lighter horizon)
- Intensity (more grayed zenith? more vibrant horizon??)
The last one is the one I’m least sure about, but it’s something I’ve been noticing in real life and in phots. Sometimes, it feels like a more neutralized and darker and more violet zenith can give a feeling of expansiveness and depth to the sky than any of the individual elements alone.
To test this, I paint-sketched three dry-grass fields with fluffy clouds varying on the sky color mixes.
- Left: Hue priority. Traditional Ultramarine Blue to Phthalo Blue Green Shade.
- Middle: Value priority. Indanthrone to Phthalo Blue Red Shade.
- Right: Intensity priority. Gray-violet in the zenith from a mix of Cobalt Blue and Perylene Red. Grades to Phthalo Blue Red Shade.
Differences in the field colors are fairly random.
Personally, when looking at these, I find the rightmost one most realistic: the one where I combined hue, value, and intensity, and kept the zenith grayed. However, an art friend looking at these came to a different conclusion; they didn’t feel that this one was more realistic than the Ultramarine-based one, so much as it appeared to be a different environmental condition. The Ultramarine one looked like a clear blue sky, while the grayed sky looked more like a hazy sky you’d see in a city.
Since I am generally always in cities – living, painting from life, forming my opinions of what looks realistic – it makes sense that I would find this one more natural, even if it’s actually less so!
What do you think? Does neutralizing a sky make it look more realistic, or more smoggy?