… and some more clouds…

Some more clouds painted on my iPad Pro using ProCreate. The timelapse video is posted here.

Golden sunset in real paint

I converted my iPad painting (performed in ProCreate) of the “Golden sunset” to an oil painting over the weekend. I struggled to transfer the original photo to the painting until I turned to the digital iPad painting as reference. I realized that the abstraction into the digital painting was what I needed to be be able to abstract the image into oil. The conversion of complex objects, such as clouds, has always been difficult for me, but the initial digital painting may just be the key. In the digital painting I can try and undo and try again until I get it right, whereas the oil painting is somewhat unforgiving against mistakes.

I also used Winson&Newton’s Liquin in this painting. Liquin is a resin-like oil paint medium that dramatically decreases the setting and drying time of the paint to the point where it behaves like acrylics. I found this to be important to effectively paint the clouds, which are highly dependent on layering.

Overall I worked on the painting in 3 different sessions and, when I stood back with my cup of coffee, the coffee tasted really good!

Golden Sunset

I love clouds. No… I am fascinated by them. They are undefined, unstructured and simply beautiful. Every cloud is unique and there will never be another one like that one.

I recently went to the website Outdoorphoto and found the most incredible reference photos of South African clouds (the best ones around!). The painting I made was completed on my iPad Pro using ProCreate. It took me about 30 minutes to complete late one evening. I like it and it may develop into a full-scale oil painting.

Dimensioning my clouds

One of the fascinating aspects of human sight is our ability to see in three dimensions. I think the mosy striking cloud experiences I have ever had was where I could observe 3D cloud formations towering over me such that I could observe the depth in and the shape of the clouds in an almost tangible way. This 3-D appearance is very difficult to obtain in paint. I thinks the attempt below is a good step in the right direction.

Clouds on my iPad

Whenever I get artistically stuck I revert to greyscale / monochrome paintings. Too much colour options get overwhelming at times. In real paint I never use black. I always mix my darks using ultramarine and burnt sienna. The result is that I may have a range of true greys, or, mixing in more blue, I get cold blue-greys. By mixing more burnt sienna, I get a warmer sepia range of colours.

Well, I do not have much time for real paint at moment, so I prepared some monochrome palettes in Procreate on my iPad Pro and painted the clouds below using a cold grey value scale. I am quite satisfied. It does not seem to be a digital painting, which is good. It took me less than 40 minutes to complete. I used a reference photo.

Clouds 2

This is a follow-up post on my study in clouds.  I really like this outcome.  I considered this painting and the previous one as my best to date (at around August 2015) and consequently had them framed.  The outcome was remarkable.  I still get a deep sense of satisfaction looking at these paintings.