A Couple of Skies

These were the two I'd been having a bit of trouble with: tones in the sky I thought was the main problem, combined with cliched-looking tree silhouettes. Came back to them fresh yesterday with some confidence from completing the In the Clouds series and, by sheer fluke and a bit of laziness, achieved a solution of sorts . . .

Redbank Winter Sunset (Owen Springs): Oil on Hemp (41cm x 92)

Redbank Dawn (Owen Springs): Oil on Hemp (66cm x 71cm)

The solution was to stop worrying about the sky and concentrate on the tones of the trees. I wanted to get started on the painting but the brush I was going to use for the clean whites and pastels of the skies had brown on it, so I began using it on the darks of the trees, simply to warm myself up on the painting again and to wipe off the colour before cleaning it properly. The slightly muddy burnt sienna colour seemed to work quite well to suggest the backlit effect on the edges of the silhouette, so I kept going.

Long live the rule of sloth.