It has recently come to my attention that I have never spent much time representing the sky, as I was always too absorbed by the landscape when creating paintings. After looking back at previous paintings, this was something I needed to work on, in order to refine my paintings.
I decided to spend the day in my room, sheltered from the stormy weather, and create a cloud study. This was much harder than I had expected. As the clouds swept past my view, my acrylic paints seemed to dry more quickly than ever, making it difficult for me to blend the tones and highlights of the cloud formations. I was then reminded of why I hadn’t previously spent much time depicting the sky (especially when working on location), I’d be wasting hours trying to get it “just right”!
I then decided to break free from my current mindset (wishing to only create work on location), having not much choice other than to work from photographs as the storms raged on! I took this as a chance for me to study the formation of clouds and also work out a technique to feature them in my work.
This approach has definitely helped me to complete my paintings to a better standard, and I will continue to use the aid of photography to help me with my paintings in the future. When working on location, I will document the scene through photographs so that I am able to continue to work on them back in the studio. This semester, I am spending much more time refining my paintings, ready for the end of year exhibition in May!
Adalia Mynett 