Gauzy altostratus

02/23/12, 19:30 am, looking northwest

This morning was warm and sunny with altostratus clouds moving northeast. Today's high is forecast to be 73 degrees F. We are in a weather change to cooler temperatures and possible rain tomorrow. These clouds moved by at a brisk pace and by mid-day were succeeded by puffy little altocumulus clouds.


The challenge in painting clouds is to capture their indefiniteness and translucency. The way I've learnt to paint these thin, diaphanous clouds is more like staining the wet paper with the brush rather than making strokes with it. If I put on too much pigment, I dab it off and try again. I'll let the paper dry and then stain another layer over the first. Even though this painting looks very pale and light, there are at least four layers of pigment on the paper. Which is cold press watercolor paper, this time.

Last day of the frigid front

Today's low was 17 degrees F according to Weather Underground, but the thermometer on the back porch read 12 when the dogs went out (briefly) at 5:15 am. The temperature will only go up for the rest of the day. Winter is here for the moment but the warmer temperatures of fall/spring are forecast for the rest of the week. 


A warm front moving into Central Virginia and displacing a cold front causes interesting cloud formations. This one was in the south just before 5 pm, a few minutes before sunset. Lots of layers here including cirrus, altostratus and altocumulus. Looks like a muddy gray curtain closing over the sky.

Three moons

12/9/11 7:45 pm, looking up, Armour House

Yes, I know it is the same moon, just three visions of it in these paintings. In the first image from December 9th at 7:45 pm, there is something I'm calling a moonbow. Since there is a Wikipedia entry for it, it must exist, right? Apparently Aristotle thought so for he wrote about the rare moon rainbow in his Meteorology.


There was a lot of moisture in the air, a very dewy dew point, and maybe it reflected a ring of moonlight around the moon as I looked up at it. A full moon halo. So a true moonbow is white since it emanates from moonlight. Any bow containing prismatic colors is caused by sunlight.

12/10/11. 5:45 am, facing west

The second moon painting is the setting moon on the following morning at 5:45 am. This moon wears an altostratus cloud cap. This portrait was taken just before the lunar eclipse which we were unable to see on the East coast of the US. The moon set here before the eclipse began.

12/11/11, 7:30 pm, facing east

The third moon still looks full but is a waning gibbous moon at 92 percent illumination. The moon shine is particularly bright and strong. The moon face is seems somewhat quizzical and amused in its personality. Altogether, this is a charming, waxing gibbous moon.

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.

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

Overcast at night

October 16th was cool and clear until night when a blanket of clouds covered the sky in advance of a weather change. These altostratus clouds covered the sky in diagonal undulations with lower clouds reflecting back the ambient light at about 9:30 pm in the eastern sky.


Altostratus clouds are gray or blue-gray middle-level clouds composed of ice crystals and water droplets. These clouds usually cover the entire sky. Altostratus clouds often form ahead of storms that will produce continuous precipitation.


Here's an excerpt from Goethe's poem entitled "Stratus":


Then the mist raises itself upon the mountain,
Broadly piling up streak on streak (of cloud), so that far and wide
The middle air is wrapped in gloom, equally favourable
Either to its falling as rain or rising airily.

Altostratus bow

Yesterday evening, October 10th, I saw this amazing arrangement of altostratus clouds with the sun peeking through and causing a sunbow on the right. What a delight the skies are.


A sunbow is a prismatic arc of colors resulting from the refraction of sunlight through water, or in this case, water vapor. You'll often see a sunbow in your garden sprinkler on a sunny afternoon. This sunbow was mostly yellow and blue and seemed to shoot through a hole in the clouds.

Altostratus clouds

These soft sheer altostratus clouds covered the sky for most of the daylight hours on Sunday, October 9th. The light winds were blowing northeast and stretched the clouds in that direction. This western-facing view, taken at about 4 pm, shows layers of blue-gray cloud obscuring the blue sky.


Altostratus clouds generally cover the entire sky and may indicate coming rain storms. Our forecast calls for rain starting on Tuesday, October 11th.