The original study, done on location at Ghost Ranch.
A work in progress of that sky.
It was a glorious view at Ghost Ranch outside of Santa Fe at the Plein Air Convention. I wrote about the joy of plein air painting with friends old and new in a previous blog. But this blog is about that sky.
That sky made its way above Lake Michigan — because why not!
I forgot to take a photo of it, because I was so busy trying to capture it in paint. And I did get a good plein air study of that sky finished. That little 8×10 study came back to the studio with me and I’ve been exploring it in various paintings again and again. Changing this or that, seeing how many ways I can interpret it, and reinterpret it. Though I don’t have a photo, the sky is pretty etched in my memory, and it was so memorable, and I stood and painted it.
Another rendition of the sky. Playing with bouncing light here.
It has become the jumping off point for artistic experimentation and learning: playing with a subject — the sky — and then doing a series of paintings trying to make it a bit different than the one before.
The largest of all these paintings at 30×30. I think it will be fun to do it even bigger!
This is one way we learn, and it’s the joy of exploration. It’s one of the reasons we paint: to see what else can be done. I suspect I will paint this sky again as I keep thinking of new ways to approach it.
Here I’m wondering what a bit more fire would do to this sky.
