A new project has been announced in the WetCanvas! project system!
Title: Painting Clouds in Pastel
Project Leader: Craig Houghton
Relative Difficulty: Irrelevant
Type Restrictions: Painting
Medium: Pastels
Subject: Landscape
Days open for signups: Always
Maximum participants allowed: Unlimited
Description:
The goal of this project is to learn a bit (more) about clouds while sharing tips on how to paint them in pastel.
I’m inviting (challenging) everyone who works in pastels (soft, oil, hard, water soluble, whatever) to learn the basic cloud types (there’s really only three) and how to paint them in pastel. Here are the guidelines:
1. Take a look at the info below and the links. Learn the basic types. One can certainly just paint them as they are seen, but since most of us have often used, and will continue to include, clouds in our works, a few moments time spent learning a bit about them will be well spent – it helps to understand the types from memory since skies shift so rapidly when painting from life, there’s specific tricks and approaches for certain cloud families, to know a variety of clouds really helps you select the perfect clouds for your piece, and in general, accurate portrayal of the cloud types lends believability to a work.
2. In the description of your gallery post, along with the usual title/medium/support info, tell us what basic (or more specific) types of clouds are present in the work. This can be tough, but the challenge here is to learn something new and help others pick it up as well.
2. The links and reference images are there if you need them, but you’re not limited to them in any way. Feel free to use existing works or (much better) go out, paint the sky, and identify what you saw for the rest of us.
3. As you post your gallery images, visit the project thread and consider posting WIP-style images or close-ups to help show everyone how you managed to capture those clouds. The focus should be not only on a better understanding of what goes on overhead, but how exactly to capture that in pastel.
4. Have fun, take risks, and tell everyone what you are doing and how you’re managing it. Enjoy everyone!
And, what’s the best way to translate that stunning (admission free) three dimensional drama that plays out in the skyscape above onto pastel paper? It depends on the clouds.
There are three basic cloud types: cumulus, stratus, and cirrus. Prefixes like cirro (way up) and alto (mid to high) help us place the clouds in the sky. There appears to be no special term for low clouds. The prefix or suffix nimbo is used to indicate that precipitation is falling from the clouds. When you look at listings of various cloud-types in the links, it seems like there's an endless supply of types, but that's only because you can mix cloud types and add prefixes and otherwise end up with things that sound like altocumulus and cirrostratus (those are examples of clouds with two shapes together, and so the names are conjoined). However, if you know the three basic types and understand the alto/cirro/nimbo stuff, you'll be fine.
When looking at the links, here's a good way to conceptualize the families:
Cumulus: puffy clouds (like pillows)
Stratus: layered clouds (like sheets and blankets)
Cirrus: wispy clouds (like feathery sweeps of cloud painted upon the ceiling.)
So, stratus sheets, cumulus pillows, and cirrus ceiling patterns (sounds like nap time really.)
You can mix puffy bits with a blanket and end up with something like stratocumulus. Cumulonimbus means rainy puffy clouds (*cough* thunderhead). Cirrostratus, indicates a high-altitude blanket (btw, remember that cirro and cirrus are different terms even though they look similar). You can mix and match types and differentia to end up with a whole glossary of terms.
This link provides some really meaty cloud info: http://vortex.plymouth.edu/clouds.html
This site has incredible cloud pics and lots of weighty background if you look around: http://www.cloudman.com/gallery1/gallery1_1.html
Have fun, learn a bit, and check out the project discussion.
Additional Information:
For more information on the project:
Click here!
Remember, in order to help keep the discussions on projects organized, you should post your questions, suggestions, and comments on submitted work here in this thread. By doing this, we allow other non-project efforts to not get "pushed down" by a swarm of project-related threads.
Project Discussion: Painting Clouds in Pastel
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