Oh I love watching Crufts we will get it later bet there's a lot of b..ching going on...I read a good thread on the Forum regarding controlling water colour by using gum arabic I bought some and messed around with it got some lovely effects wet in wet it's only a big mess around so can't show it but all in all I liked the way you could drop colors in with control you may have already seen it but if not it's under Gum Arabic Help and she got heaps...Diana thanks so much for giving me that web address I got it up no problems....emailed them to ask if it would cost anything and got a nice answer back promptly...I will check out sky channel which for us seems to be a news channel...we have Foxtel over here and I'm not sure if it's the same thing but anyway I can get it on my computer so thank you very much and I can pick and choose...hope your back is a bit more comfortable

Phil, I agree about the skies but there are certain aspects that can be very wrong; the light source for instance. With a low sun, light on the clouds will be underneath them in the main- mine were on top. With a high sun at noon you would have silver or red tops to the clouds. Patsy it wasn't the first one I binned but the second one I tried. I ended up painting a foreground tree to cover most of it but it was still horrid. I can still do something with those wrong lights on the first one. I so wish \I could have got that sky I saw yesterday. There was no wind at all and it stayed pretty much the same for over an hour. I'll have to take another trip to Orkney; land of the big skies to get some practice in. What a great excuse. Anyway no painting today- watching Crufts!

Hi Diana and thank you very much for that web address which I will try...I can't believe you threw out that lovely watercolour...we are our own worse critics...I heard Simon Shama say about an artist that he produced his best work when he stopped reading, studying and worrying about painting...I know how you feel though I'm going through the same thing with the Chinese Brush Work...which won't be picked up again until I've finished the landscape...why don't you keep your landscapes in a folio then look back to see your improvement...thanks so much for your advice on the rocks

The sky is only your impression of it...others would have seen something else in that sky if they had been alongside you painting at the same time too...I doubt if anyone could honestly say that you or any of us produces bad skies...having said that I know what you mean, one canvas, four skies on it and still not happy with it...yep that is me too