Watercolor Skies
.... by Bill Hudson
Years ago, I began painting with oils. But I realized that no other media capture the luminosity of skies like watercolor. For that and its spontaneous nature, watercolor became my primary medium.
Most of my paintings are seascapes. Because water is highly reflective, it follows that sky representations are of high importance to me. Skies set the mood, the tone, and color for entire maritime scenes. Therefore, I typically paint the sky first. If I don't like it, I'll simply start again without having invested significant time.
Before starting the painting, I practice my sky approach. I want to avoid surprises and mistakes while yielding to the magic of watercolor wet-in-wet techniques. After a few tries, feeling optimistic in loosely controlling the independent nature of watercolor, I'm ready to begin the actual painting.
Personal Preferences/Recommendations
Visual arts have few rules limiting creativity. But we all have preferences. As a maritime painter of realism, I’ve settled on only two personal absolutes for painting watercolor skies.
(1) Never paint a uniform sky. Even a cloudless sky at high noon has subtle variety in color and value when looking up and down, or east and west.
(2) Never use granulating colors in the sky. Skies should be soft and transparent. With few exceptions, I use Winsor Newton watercolors with unique WN names for each. Other brands may have similar names for the same color, but the important common feature is the pigment. Pigments are either organic (derived from living things and contain carbon) or inorganic (do not contain carbon).
Many inorganic pigments are mined from minerals. They are heavy and tend to concentrate in the hollows of the paper. This is referred to as granulation and/or flocculation. This can be a highly desirable effect producing visual textures for structures and landscapes. However, for me, granulation is highly undesirable for skies and smooth water. Granulating pigments include: Ultramarines, cobalts, many earth tones, and iron blacks.
