On the way home from work this week I saw an incredible sunset through tall trees. I couldn’t stop to take a picture or paint it live at the time, but it was such a great candidate for a vertical composition that I tried to work it from memory and invention.
In looking at Turner’s skies, you can really see the movement and energy in them. He often does swirled, rounded skies, emphasizing the curvature of the earth. I couldn’t fit all of that in such a narrow composition, so I tried to work with angles to show the clouds and the light coming from somewhere and going to somewhere else.
In case I mess up the trees I am posting the work in progress since the sky came out pretty well. I can’t leave it as is anyway because of the damaged paper. I don’t know, maybe that isn’t noticeable. Also, I think I need to study some really tall skinny trees before I put them in here. Daniel Smith lemon yellow around the white for the brightest light seemed to work pretty nicely. I just got a tube of it a couple weeks ago and have been using some here and there. Seeing it here really makes me love that color.
It’s been nice getting some painting time in on Thanksgiving. My daughters really wanted to paint this morning, so they got me motivated today.
Happy Thankagiving!
Corey Aber 
the sunset is going to be gorgeous, Corey. Can’t wait to see it finished.
Love the sunset! It is the only one we’ve seen since arriving in Belize! Happy thanksgiving!
Sent from my iPad
I like this a lot. I thought it was only photographers that did ‘vertical panoramas’!
Hey thanks. I got the idea to work vertically from looking at Wil Freeborn’s work. He’s doing a vertical series of coffee shop exteriors now and I liked the format. Now to figure out how to frame these.
My pleasure. Off to look at Wil Freeborn’s work!
I knew the name rang a bell. I have his book ‘a sketchbook’ but have stayed up with what he’s been doing.