Clouds

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If you are bored, look up. You may be surprised at what you see. Clouds can be unicorns or dragons, fish or faces.

When I was young I would lie on my back and look up at the sky. Watching the clouds rush with rapidity or drift with stately slowness. Like the galleons I drew in my school exercise books. Then it was pirates racing to catch treasure ships.

Thunder clouds were mountains, or giant anvils, sometimes clouds looked like waves on the sea, or hills and beaches.

I gradually learnt a few of the names of clouds, cirrus, cumulo nimbus, stratus.  Each had a wonderful ring to them. Magical beauty flying high over head.

Later I learned a bit about chaos theory, and fractals. How if you magnify a bit of a cloud, the close up looks like the larger image. I heard songs like Cloudbusting by Kate Bush, and about clouds being seeded to make rain fall.

You see they are interesting creatures, even if they are not mythical beasts.

So, if you are interested, look up the cloud appreciation society. They have a page on Facebook. Their founder set up a group which people can join. They have a cloud of the month, and sometimes send out a newsletter.

With climate change, and the increase in severity of the weather, its interesting to find out how water vapour can be so beautiful and yet so wild.

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Pink dawn

Sky to the East of us about 7. 10 am. Barometer showing fair but the old  saw that red sky in the morning is a shepherd’s warning seems appropriate after all the bad weather we’ve been having. Apparently if the sky is red its because the dawn is reflecting off the underside of clouds (yes I can see that), and that means the bad weather is more likely to be overhead now or later. Red sky at night shepherd’s delight? The weather will have passed over and be moving away. I guess the point is also that it depends what direction the wind is blowing in?!

Waiting for the next storm…. It will probably start with the letter E…. How many more?

Rising tide…

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The sea is rising

The rain comes in mountains now.

Falling so fast its like a bomb.

Wet feet

Now wet knees,

Up to my thighs…

We walked once from Robin Hoods Bay

To Boggle Hole.

On the North East Coast

Of Yorkshire.

The sea came in

Along the rocks.

It was faster than us.

He was up to his chest,

I was up to my neck

When we waded out

Of the North Sea.

That was twenty years ago.

Now you only have to look at a cloud

And you are covered, soaked, flooded.

Where will it end?

Up a creek without a paddle?

Finished, Jupiter with moon.

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Decided this is finished, not going to overwork it. I added a moon and its shadow. I wanted to keep the colours fresh and interesting. I liked the idea of tipping it at an angle. We tend to have images of planets on a horizontal plane because that is the way the solar system rotates ‘on the plane of the ecliptic’, but if you were on an asteroid skimming past you wouldn’t necessarily be travelling in the same plane as the planets.

Con trail

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Condensation trail.

Sometimes people mistakenly call them chem trails and assume that planes are dumping chemicals. What the planes are actually doing is disturbing cold moist air in the atmosphere and the moisture (water vapour) condenses out and leaves a trail in the sky behind the plane. They regularly criss cross the sky above where I live as I live quite close to a couple of airports. Obviously they seem more frequent in the summer. If you want to find out more about clouds there is the cloud appreciation society. They have a page on Facebook.

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Purple skies

I don’t know why but the usual grey clouds you get at sunset (sometimes tinged with pink) came out strikingly purple last night. I have read that there is dust and ash in the stratosphere from a couple of volcanoes which is giving the sky a violet tinge at the moment. Maybe it’s that or maybe its my camera phone. Anyway I will post a couple of these to the cloud appreciation society Facebook page. Maybe they can explain.

Sun through cloud

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The sun was shining through the clouds at Spode this afternoon giving everything a moody look.

Grey clouds, leaden

A glimmer of sun

Bright, yellow, hot

Sizzles through the clouds.

Humid heat festers

Industrial view languishes

Only a few plants

And a cat sleeping in the dust,

But alive,

Better than ruins.

 

Clouds are a pain!

More work in progress photos. I’m struggling to get the clouds right. I need to try and get the detail and shading correct. Also when it’s finished the paintwork on the frames will be all crackled and flakey.

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Looking closer, the greys are dark but not too dark, I may also bring a tiny bit of brown in and thin it down for the wood in the windows. Mostly it’s blending and shading to get a realistic effect.