From the 2011 Old Farmer's Almanac, under the entry for October:
The month belongs to Jupiter, which rises at sunset in Aries, is near the moon on the 13th, and is closest to the earth on the 27th at a blazing magnitude -2.9. Appearing almost 50 arcseconds in width and looking wonderful through telescopes, Jupiter makes its closest visit until 2022. No other planet is worthwhile this month.
Last night, the moon and Jupiter put on a dramatic show playing hide and seek with fast-moving clouds headed north. October 13th was a dramatic weather day, indeed, with several tornadoes wreaking havoc in Virginia. This watercolor was painted about 10 pm facing east with occasional showers from the quick clouds.
According to the Farmer's Almanac, the full hunter's moon was an opportunity to hunt after the fields were harvested and before winter's cold arrived. Hunters could easily see nocturnal animals like foxes who emerged to glean the fallen grain.
Early this morning, before dawn, the first threads of clouds from this massive hurricane curled over central Virginia. These clouds were glowing whitely in the night sky. The clouds have no shadows because there is no sun I suppose. It makes the cloud color and movement seem unearthly which, of course, it is.
The sky was a river of blue-black ink with the white clouds swirling through it. I've seen clouds at night glowing with colors of pink and orange. I wonder where the color comes from if there is no sun. I painted clouds from hurricane Bertha once that looked like little pink cakes on a dark blue tray moving quickly through the sky. We will see what else Irene has to offer once she has passed through Virginia. Right now we have lots of rain.
Lovely big cumulus clouds wafting through Virginia today. These were painted facing east at about 2 pm with the wind lightly blowing southeast.
This watercolor is painted on Arches rough watercolor block. If you look at the blue sky above the middle white cloud you can see some characteristic puddling of the blue pigment in a kind of pebbled texture. Also a feature of painting on rough paper is the broken brush stroke where the brush hair bounces over the uneven surface. An example of this is in the edge of the right-most white cloud on the border of the blue sky.
Yes, the leaves are turning brown, the grass is toasted and the ears of corn whither on the stalk--another sunny day in Virginia. It seems that each day has an endless afternoon parade of white fluffy clouds across a French ultramarine sky.
The end of summer is coming soon and I hope for some variation in cloud formations and light. This brain-shaped cumulus shape floated toward the northeast at about four o'clock in the afternoon. The strong afternoon sun was just out of the composition to the upper left and bleached the cloud edges to a blaze of light.
The bright light seems to have bleached my brain into a headache. I'm trying to imagine John Constable with his painting easel and kit, wearing a summer hat and squinting at the shimmering landscape around the River Stour in Suffolk, England in 1822. I bet he got headaches, too. Perhaps I should bathe my temples with vinegar and sit in a darkened room. Or, choke down some willow bark tea sweetened with honey. That's how I imagine headache may have been treated in the early 19th century.
Beautiful day for weather and clouds! Huge cumulonimbus towers moving across the deep blue sky at Armour House in Henrico, Virginia with rain and thunderstorms coming in.
These clouds moved fast to the west. Since I faced northwest, they were moving toward the left of the watercolor. This was painted at noon with dark storm clouds at my back. As the afternoon has progressed, we've had no rain but lots of overcast shadows.
Armour House is part of Henrico County Recreation & Parks and is a delightful place to walk, paint and just be. The staff is great and they offer classes and lots of fun activities for all ages. Nice skies, too.
Another 102 degree day with scattered clouds and middling humidity. This summer seems to go on forever. I've set myself a task to create a sky work each day--a painting or drawing in any medium. Today's watercolor involved finding materials, paints, brushes, watercolor block. There's nothing like being an artist out of practice, retraining the hand-eye connection and using mental muscles weak with inactivity.
A cloud a day, a mental discipline and a work of art. We'll see, won't we?
This evening watercolor was painted of rapidly changing skies facing east with an oncoming storm making the clouds turn gray and streaky. Higher clouds retained the color of the sun and the odd blue patch of sky seems more like positive than negative space. The darkness of the little blue clouds moving in front of the blue sky looks strange--at one point it reminded me of a rabbit hopping through space.
Here's another warm up sketch of quick clouds with vibrant colors.
