My attempt at the vast night sky

In my last entry, I mentioned the challenge of using watercolor to portray the deep night sky. So last night I went out on the back porch to search the vast sky for color and composition. I was presented with a lovely view of the planet Saturn on the left with the bright star Arcturus in the middle and the Canes venatici stars, Alkaid, Mizar and Alioth on the right. A lovely night indeed!


It was a lot of fun to put down all these washes of color--glaze over glaze of dark blues, violets and blacks. Because so many people still have no electric power due to the hurricane, the ambient light is lower than usual. This is a painting of the western sky about 10 pm looking toward and above downtown Richmond where it is usually much brighter along the horizon.

Irene part 2

The morning after the wind, rain and falling trees dawned beautiful, cool and clear. Leaves and branches littered lawns, porches and cars. Big trees fell inches from cars without damaging the cars; the trees, of course, were totaled.


This watercolor painted about 6 am facing the dawn seemed a good omen. The not-yet-visible sun cast a warm glow on the upper clouds. The departing storm clouds remained gray and dreary. That was the backside of Irene, now a tropical storm, on her way to New York and New England.


So many homes and businesses without power in central Virginia, about 1.2 million. We will clean up, repair and go on.

Irene part 1

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.

Thunderstorms from the west

Big beautiful cumulus clouds moved in yesterday evening a gave us a delightful thunderstorm in advance of hurricane Irene. Again these cumulus clouds were underlaid by thick stratus "dinner plates".


The day was breezy and warm but there was a hint of changing seasons in the air. Plants that looked thoroughly dejected revived in the rain and lifted their leaves.


Note that there is no earth visible in this watercolor, painted about 6:30 pm while facing west. The more solid forms in the lower third of the sheet are also clouds.

From earthquake to hurricane

August has been an eventful geological and weather month. As we still feel the aftershocks of our earthquake, we prepare for hurricane Irene who will come visiting on Saturday. She is projected to be a category 2 hurricane with winds of about 100 mph (that's about 160 kph). Since central Virginia is not on the projected path, our forecast is for wind and rain as the lady brushes by.


Perhaps due to the changing seasons or the weather phenomena we had very interesting clouds this morning. Fluffy cumulus clouds sitting on thick white porcelain stratus dinner plates. Higher cirrus clouds streaked away up high beyond the cumulus. The effect is entrancing.


This was painted about 10 am facing northwest.