A thin coating of yellow ochre and white acrylic was washed over the support, and when this was dry, I drew out the landscape with a size 2 Jackson’s Black Hog Round, using a weak mix of ultramarine with just a hint of burnt sienna oil paint. I’ve spent minimal time on this stage, but indicated just enough detail to work with.

I used a mix of ultramarine and titanium white for the darkest blues, and a touch of the cooler temperature cerulean blue nearer the horizon. A small dab of burnt sienna was added to establish the darkest clouds. More burnt sienna plus Prussian blue was added to this mix, which was scrubbed into the darkest areas of trees and land mass using a Jackson’s size 6 Shiro hog brush.

Further various strength mixes of both ultramarine and cerulean blue were blocked in to the remaining sky areas. I’m working rapidly and spontaneously at this stage, brushing in contrasting warm and cool mixes of blues, keeping it all looking lively. I’ve held off from continuing with the land mass, I’ll revisit this once I’ve established most of the sky

Titanium white was added to areas of sky to create the cloud structure, warmed up in places with a touch of yellow ochre, once again, using the same Jackson’s Shiro hog brush to randomly form the shapes. The darker formations were made by adding a touch of Prussian blue to my original blue mix. I bought the skyline down to the horizon with a lighter mix, softening the furthest landscape and the prominent Wrekin mountain.

More titanium white and cerulean blue was added into the cloud structure, developing their shape as I proceeded, plus a little cadmium red – some highlights were laid on impasto style with a painting knife.  A stronger combination of ultramarine and Prussian blue was brushed into the top parts of the sky, desaturated slightly (greying down) by adding cadmium orange - this gave me the tonal graduation I was looking for. In the final stage I’ll be adding areas of scumble to the sky, and dealing with the land mass, keeping it simple.

A lighter mix of cerulean blue and white, with just a hint of cadmium red was brushed into the horizon as I felt it was still a bit too strong, then some scumbling was introduced to parts of the sky, applied with a large flat brush as well as a knife. This added some useful texture which is helpful in adding interest to a flat surface. I further strengthened areas of sky with a series of glazes using a megilp gel medium (Gamblin), which gave it more optical depth. Finally, a few highlights were sparingly added to the land area using yellow ochre and titanium white. I’ve deliberately kept this land mass low key, as I wanted the sky to be the star of the show, and not to compete in any way.