Backlit Clouds
 |
| Backlit Clouds, 9×12, oil – $100 – contact Michael |
As many of my students will tell you, I enjoy painting backlit subjects. It seems like I’m always positioning myself so I’m looking into the sun with some nice rimlighting around a mountain. (It makes for a nice tan.) Sometimes, we get clouds in Sedona, and I like to paint those backlit, too.
Here’s an example. For this one, clearly it was the clouds that drew my eye. They were incandescent and fiery around the edges. I could almost feel the heat.
One thing I observed was the curious progression of warm-and-cool from the clouds nearly overhead to the ones on the horizon. The ones closer by, and thus most overhead, had warm, shadowed interiors and a nimbus of cool light. The farther away the clouds got, this reversed, so they had cool, shadowed interiors and a warmer nimbus. This change in contrast of warm and cool quite striking and contributed to the sense of light and heat.
A Plein Air Painter's Blog 
Gorgeous backlit clouds!And here is a bit of cloud trivia: in the days before radar, loran, &c, sailors on watch could tell if they were approaching land because the clouds over land have warmer bottoms than those over the sea.
Fascinating, Helen!