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Sunday, August 14, 2016

Sky Painting Tip #5 Adding Sparkle to your Clouds

'The Evolution of the Clouds'         9x12        pastel        ©Karen Margulis
available $155
It was one of those so called happy accidents. I didn't do it on purpose and when it happened I thought about changing it. After all it wasn't in my plan. But I decided to embrace it and it opened a door to something exciting! Lesson learned.

I was choosing pastels to use for my clouds. I picked out some darks for the shadows, some middle values and finally some lights for the illuminated part of the clouds. I don't usually pay too much attention to the exact color. I am more interested in getting the value I need. So I was hunting for a very light value green....almost white. I was excited to find just the right piece of pastel....until I made a mark.

It sparkled!  It shimmered! It was glittery and shiny! It was a Great American Pearlescent green pastel and a piece somehow made it into my big pastel box. 

I made another mark. And another. I started to like the resulting shimmer in my clouds. It was an accident but I was happy! I now have a new use for all of those pearlescent pastels I've collected....cloud sparkle!


close up of clouds. click to enlarge. Sparkle doesn't translate well in the photo.

I hope you have enjoyed the sky tips I have shared this week. If you would like more tips consider my Sky and Cloud demo booklet on Etsy. It has the step by step demo for today's painting along with much more. It is like a mini workshop pdf. Thank you to all of you who have already purchased it!

Sample pages



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1 comment:

Gayle said...

I can so relate to the thrill of an unplanned color accent! I'm an acrylic painter and have usually had these epiphanies when the brush accidentally picked up a smidgen of paint from another pile by mistake or a small remnant of color was still attached to the brush after cleaning it for a new passage. These little miracles tend to occur once I've been painting for several hours, and the paint scrapings start to merge together on the palette and I'm tired beyond thinking and want to have one last go at it before quitting, then intuition take over. What a thrill! Love the idea of touches of green in the clouds. I must let my neighboring blues and greens have a visit now and then rather rely on the blue-purple entente the next time I paint cloud shadows.