October 10, 2008
Cloudy Day Colors
On a recent painting trip to Colorado I spent 4 days painting in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Unfortunately it rained most of the time and was overcast the rest of the time. It’s a little disappointing when you’re looking forward to early morning light and shadow and sunsets. But cloudy days present a good opportunity to practice different lighting conditions. On cloudy days the values are always closer together, you don’t have the strong value and temperature contrast that you find on a sunny day, so it forces you to really see the subtle value changes.
The colors are also strong or richer on a cloudy day. On a sunny day the strong sunlight washes out the color, you have to add more white to get it light enough, but on a cloudy day there isn’t any direct sunlight to wash out the color so it’s more pure. Spend some time really looking at color on a sunny day and compare it to colors when its mostly cloudy. No excuse now not to paint on a cloudy day.
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October 21st, 2008 at 10:31 am
Thanks Phil for pointing out that colors are richer on cloudy days. Richard Schmid prefers to paint outside on overcast days for that very reason.
Love your work!!!! Just amazingly beautiful.
Lori
October 29th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Thanks Lori. You might even try painting on a day when it’s sprinkling. If you have prepared your canvas you can do it with oils. Makes for some rare opportunities.
Phil