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Stormy skies

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Caroline Dally

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Posted
How do I make the yellow look less strong and more thundery?  Hindered by only having raw sienna for this effect and indigo for the rest. Probably not the right brushes either

Caroline Dally

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Scrubbed across watered down indigo but think the storm now doesn’t know which way it is blowing!

Edited
by Caroline Dally

Caroline Dally

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Posted
Improved the sea. Sky still not right

Alan Bickley

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Posted
Yellow is a tricky colour, particularly in the sky and its all gone rather muddy looking! Even verging on green in places where its mixed with the indigo. Have a look at Turner’s watercolour sketches from his plein air sketch books and see how he approached this type of subject. He did of course work on a variety of tinted papers which can help, I’m thinking a grey or even a beige paper here - you can tint your own paper of course but you need a decent weight to avoid cockling. There’s a colour called Light Red and when mixed with Ultramarine will give you a good base for storm clouds, but you do need to expand your palette somewhat. (Add a small amount of light red to the ultramarine). You can also achieve granulation with these two colours but that’s for another time! This subject calls for a rapid and spontaneous wet in wet approach, remember that rapid doesn’t mean slapdash, you always need to be in control! I hope that’s given you something to consider.

Edited
by Alan Bickley