In Progress- Storm Clouds 3/11/16

Clouds are so much fun to paint! These are some storm clouds from an afternoon a few weeks ago. I experimented with doing the under drawing in water color pencil, and that worked really nicely. You can see how the left side is darker, I was trying to draw first and then brush it with water, but it got surprisingly dark and smeared. So on the right side I just used them like regular pencils, and painted right over it with no problems.

Storm Clouds 3/11/16, 6x12 inches, oil on panel, unfinished.

 The first layer was painted without any medium added, so the paint would stay wet and workable all day, and I could save the mixed up colors for next time. It's a great time saver to be able to pull out the old colors instead of having to remix, and it will match for sure. Mixing the same exact color twice can be tricky sometimes. 

Storm Clouds 3/11/16, 6x12 inches, oil on panel, unfinished.

This is the second layer. After the first layer dried, I went back to rework some areas, and add brighter whites. From the photo, it's kind of hard to tell which clouds are in front, so I was trying to make that more clear. Some of the areas needed to have a little stronger color, like the blue parts of the sky, so I added Neo Meguilp medium to the paint and glazed it on. The medium makes the paint more translucent, so it can catch more light and look brighter.

Storm Clouds 3/11/16, reference photo.