#2767 "Sunrise on April Stormy Weather"

#2767 "Sunrise on April Stormy Weather"
9x12 oils on canvas

It really helps to be able to visualize the weather in time and space.. like a movie playing in your mind. That is how I prefer to see the forecast. 

The sunrise sky foretold of a large and violent spring storm. The warm air mass was extremely unstable and charged with a very high precipitable water content. Tornadoes killed more than fifty people in the United States. The multi-day event would last into Wednesday. 

I had wanted to do the approaching weather en plein air but life gets in the way sometimes. I cleared my slate for Wednesday but freezing rain thunderstorms forced me into the Singleton Studio. The near-freezing surface temperatures cooled to minus 2 as the air mass saturated. The "feels-like temperature" was minus 8 Celsius, but of course, that is not real. The windchill temperature does reveal that the actual temperature must edge toward colder values as the air mass is saturated. 

Supercooled water droplets froze on contact. Icicles hung from everywhere. Thunderstorms pounded the area all day long. It was a remarkable storm complex. 

Images of Freezing Rain Icicles, Ice coating surfaces and Meteorology

I squint my eyes when I paint. One does not need to see all of the details. Squinting is similar to removing your reading glasses. Both approaches help to simplify the values of your composition. The shapes of bright, mid, and dark tones really stand out. The last edge that you can see clearly will be the sharpest edge and becomes the standard for all of the other tonal shapes. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels.

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick