Dismal clouds

Soot-stained clouds full of rain blew up from the southeast today. The fire in the Great Dismal Swamp continues to burn. Most of the day we had scattered clouds and sunlight, but about 4 pm the skies darkened and we got a shower you could see coming at you across the fields.


I was buying pickling cucumbers at Gallmeyer's Veggie Stand when the rain came down. It didn't last though. When I painted these dark clouds at 4:20 pm the rain was still holding off and blowing north. Hope it rains on the swamp.

Smoke in the air

Our usual beautiful cumulus clouds have an added dimension of smoke from a huge lightning-ignited fire in the Great Dismal Swamp, surely one of the most apt place names of all time. The smell of the smoke and the smart to eyes and lungs in one aspect, but the clouds seem darker gray with other colors mixed in them.


Yesterday evening's painting was created with watercolor crayons, Caran d'Ache Neocolor II, and includes some white crayon for the first time. By that I mean that this is the first time I've colored in the white of a cloud. Previous paintings have use the color of the paper to represent the cloudy whites. This gives a different feel to the white areas and enables the artist to push back and forth the cloud/sky boundary.


This painting was done about 6:40 pm facing southwest with a overcast sky. I chose the area with a few holes of blue sky showing through in an interesting pattern. By the time I completed the work, the sky was uniformly gray. There was a light wind blowing north and bring the scent of the burning swamp. The painting looks almost map-like to me or like a satellite image of an island area with the sky as water full of sheltered coves and harbors.