Artists & Illustrators - UK (2019-11)

74 Artists&Illustrators

skies

Paintin

TECHNIQUE

I

still recall, with a shudder,

overhearing a conversation

between two students on a

painting course when one confidently

informed the other “I never bother

about planning the sky when painting

a landscape, it’s just the blue bit at

the top of the painting”. When one

considers that the conversation was

taking place near Flatford Mill in

Suffolk, on the very spot beside the

River Stour where The Hay Wain was

painted almost 200 years ago by one

of this country’s most accomplished

painters of skies, John Constable, you

might understand my shudder. Skies

are so much more than simply the

“bit at the top”.

Skies are an essential element of a

landscape or seascape, and an artist

that fails to consider the sky does so

at their peril. As Constable himself

suggested, “The landscape painter

who does not make his skies a very

material part of his composition –

neglects to avail himself of one of his

greatest aids!” To look upon skies as

simply a ‘backdrop’ would be to miss

a painterly opportunity; they offer so

much more.

Constable considered the sky to

be the dominant light source and as

such it would have a direct influence

on the landscape below; highlighting

some parts, casting shadows over

others, altering colours and tones.

The relationship between sky and

land is inseparable in his work.

Examine the effect a dull sky has over

There is far more to a sky than “the blue bit

at the top” of a landscape painting, says

ROB DUDLEY. He shares useful advice for

capturing the heavens in all their glory