Turbulent sunset

03/31/12,  7:30 pm, looking northwest

With a blustery day of wind and clouds, how else could it end except in a dramatic sunset glow between dark cumulus clouds? These huge dark clouds moved between the light red sunset-lit clouds and created this lovely glimpse of light.


March ends on a warm, dramatic note. 

Stormy sunset

03/27/12, 6:30 pm, looking northwest

These low and heavy cumulus clouds hung above the warm yellow glow of the sunset creating a dramatic contrast of complementary colors. We got showers late in the evening which cleared up completely by the next morning. More warm springish weather.

Sunset silhouettes

03/12/12, 7 pm, looking northwest

Here is the end of a warm spring-like day with long, thin and low stratus clouds silhouetted in front of a pink overcast sky. With a high of 73 degrees F, this day was about 20 degrees above the normal temperature for March 12th. 


We are at the beginning of a warming trend for the week with rain forecast for overnight. Even warmer temperatures are in the cards for tomorrow. Everything is bursting into bloom; Bradford pear trees are in an early full bloom. Daffodils. tulips and hyacinths are also blooming.

Sunset of a life

02/27/12, 6:30 pm, looking northwest

A colleague passed away this weekend. Rest in peace, Charlene.

02/26/12, 6:30 pm, looking north west

Perfectly clear, cool and sunny--a lovely late winter day. With a low of 25 degrees F and a high of 45, the day felt appropriately cool. There were no clouds during the day, just a few thin cumulus left over from the previous day's excitement.


The sunset was a most vibrant play of light in the crisp air so I used Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Aquarelle watercolor crayons for an explosion of pigment.

Sleet, snow, sunset

02/11/12, 6:20 pm, looking west

On Saturday, February 11th, the weather treated us to sleet, snow, thunder and lightning, and a dramatic sunset clearing just before dark. This mass of dark clouds lifted enough to see the last of the sunset colors in the west. It was a dramatic finish to a dramatic weather day.

Lovely sunset

02/07/12, 5:45 pm, looking west

On Tuesday, we had a wonderful clear day with a cool, bright blue sky. Clouds moved in late in the day just in time to catch the flaming pink blush of the sunset. I love the angle of these clouds as if they are rays of the setting sun which is below the horizon.


The full moon rose just after sunset in the east and the gauzy clouds surrounded it like a glowing  halo. 

Soft sunset cloud bank

01/30/12 5:30 pm, looking west

These low soft mounds of cumulus clouds covered the eastern horizon just after sunset last night reflecting the rosy glow. 


After several days of seasonal temperatures (lows in the upper 20's F), we have a warming trend forecast for the next couple of days with highs maybe reaching 70 degrees F. I hope we'll have some interesting clouds out of this warm front. I miss big, fat summer cumulus clouds! I admit it!

Sunset clouds

01/28/12, 5:15 pm, looking west

These tie-dyed cumulus silhouettes, in size order, glowed in the west on Saturday afternoon. The colors around the edges of the clouds were so vivid and a strong contrast to the deep violet shadow. 


I am noticing how the sky color seems bleached at this early point in the sunset. The sky is pale blue and the glow is just butter colored. The sun is just below the horizon. As the earth rotates and the sun moves further below the horizon, the color darkens and intensifies. Yet these clouds soak up the brilliant color from below the horizon!

Solar flare

01/24/12, 5:30 pm, looking west

The sun returned to Central Virginia today. I know it was there all the time, but we couldn't see it for all the clouds, mist and fog. And, coincidentally, today the earth receives the largest solar flare in six years. 


These blazing clouds are two contrails and one wispy cirrus paisley shape that reflected the colors of the setting sun. So nice that the sun is setting later and later each day. Sunset was 5:24 pm on January 24th and a little more than a minute later each day. Oh, and the high today was 65 degrees F!

Sunset cumulus clouds

01/07/12, about 5 pm, looking south

Saturday, January 7th, was a warm and lovely day with highs in the mid-60's and fresh, soft breezes. These disorganized cumulus clouds glowed with the light of the setting sun. They were moving briskly to the northeast in the wind which swirled and tore them into trails and clumps.


This was a spring-like day, good for working in the garden and watching robins pull earthworms for supper.

Two directions at sunset

12/18/1, 4:45 pm, cumulus clouds, looking west

12/19/11, 4:30 pm, stratus clouds, facing north

Here are two little sunsets about 24 hours apart and in two directions. The Sunday December 18th sunset has a low cumulus cloud in the west lurking in the rosy glow of the setting sun. 

Sunset two in the Monday twilight looks north. The sky has no sunset glow although the clouds reflect the lavender color. The sinuous clouds streak across the sky ans seem to dissolve at the edges.

Just another cirrus sunset

12/8/11, 4:30 pm, facing west

This sunset on Thursday, December 8th, shows the definition of the word cirrus, from the Latin word meaning curl, as in a lock of hair. These beautiful cloud curled over Richmond and glowed with the rosy light of the setting sun.

Here's the meteorological definition of cirrus courtesy of dictionary.com: 

cirrus, noun, plural--a cloud of a class characterized by thin white filaments or narrow bands and a composition of ice crystals: of high altitude, about 20,000–40,000 feet (6000–12,000meters).

Lovely, aren't they? 

Cirrus and altocumulus

The bell weather cirrus clouds are now joined by some altocumulus clouds. This one caught the beginning of sunset colors at 4:30 pm on Sunday, November 27th. Notice that the cirrus clouds are too high to have any color reflected onto them. Only the low cumulus clouds shown with color at this early point in the sunset.


Our weather change continues with Monday's forecast including overcast skies, warm temperatures and rain overnight.

Sunset and Venus

Here is Venus, although I did not know that it was she at the time, about to disappear below the horizon and into the colors of the setting sun on Friday, November 25th at about 5:30 pm. When I'm painting a celestial body, I try to think about whether it is a planet or a star so I can look it up later. 


What's the difference? My rule of thumb is that stars twinkle and planets glow steadily. Stars are nuclear factories constantly flaring and creating energy so they pulse in light which becomes twinkling. Planets are lit by reflected light from a star and therefore the light appears constant.

Thanksgiving sunset

This is the sunset on Thursday, November 24th, Thanksgiving evening, at 5:10 pm reflected in the eastern sky. The intense colors were much more colorful that the sunset in the west that night.  There were no shapes of clouds, just color reflected onto the atmosphere.


Here's a poem by Lee Rudolph that seems appropriate for a Thanksgiving of intense sunset color (it could be fog!). It is called "Little Prayer in November":


That I am alive, I thank
      no one in particular;
and yet am thankful, mostly,
although I frame no prayer

      but this one: "Creator
      Spirit, as you have come,
come again", even in November,
on these short days, fogbound.

Tale of two sunsets

The sun is now setting just before 5 pm. On Saturday, November 19th, the sky was clear and cerulean blue with these large cirrus clouds reflecting the rosy glow of the setting sun.


In the second image, 24 hours later, massive altostratus clouds dominate the entire sky.This painting tries to show the stark contrast of clouds in front of the setting sun (violet) and clouds behind it (orange, red & yellow). 


Painted at 4:50 pm on Sunday, November 20th, this painting is all cloud, no sky and the colors of the sunset are framed by the shadowed clouds like the leading in a stained glass window.


The altostratus clouds indicate the coming rain forecast for Sunday night continuing through Monday.

Cirrus sunset

Not too many possible painting days for sunsets left in 2011; soon it will be dark when I leave work. As it is, this sunset was available only from the car last night at 5:15 pm on my drive home. Facing west, the cirrus clouds had shadows on the top of the cloud since the sun was below them. These streaks of pink lit up the still-blue sky with violet shadows increasing every second. 


The sun set on November 14th at 4:59 pm and the time of nautical twilight is 5:58 pm.  In general, nautical twilight, or nautical dusk, is when you can no longer see well enough outside to do anything. In astronomical twilight, or astronomical dusk in this case, the sun is far enough below the horizon that it does not brighten the darkness. And, one can begin to see the stars and planets.

Altostratus sunset

On Tuesday, November 8th we had a beautiful sunset of altostratus clouds in the west at 5:30 pm. Seemed like a good time for Coleridge and his romantic turn of phrase. I particularly like "head bent low / And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold / 'Twixt crimson banks".


By the way, in nubibus is Latin for in the clouds, vague or undefined. These altostratus were well defined.

Fancy In Nubibus, Or The Poet In The Clouds

O! it is pleasant with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily persuaded eyes
Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low
And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold
'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go
From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land!
Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight,
Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand
By those deep sounds possessed with inward light
Beheld the Iliad and Odyssey
Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.


Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge's sunset

Painted about 6:45 pm on October 24th facing the west. Cool, sky almost free of clouds except this little conjunction of cumuli blown northeast.

Sunset

Upon the mountain's edge with light touch resting,
There a brief while the globe of splendour sits
And seems a creature of the earth; but soon
More changeful than the Moon,
To wane fantastic his great orb submits,
Or cone or mow of fire: till sinking slowly
Even to a star at length he lessens wholly.

Abrupt, as Spirits vanish, he is sunk!
A soul-like breeze possesses all the wood.
The boughs, the sprays have stood
As motionless as stands the ancient trunk!
But every leaf through all the forest flutters,
And deep the cavern of the fountain mutters.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1805.