Surfside: Step 9
Once the elements that touch the sky are complete and surrounded by color, I can begin the sky itself. I did not have time to complete all this in one sitting, but worked for short periods over several days. Instead of worrying about keeping my colors wet on the canvas to work my edges, I simply worked the edges into the sky color in the immediate area.
At this point, although all the previous paint was dry, I was able to work the sky into the existing areas of flat sky color surrounding the other elements. Since I had already worked the edges of those elements wet into wet, I did not need to worry now about developing hard edges on those elements when painting wet into dry. I simply needed to make sure that my fresh paint blended into the existing flat sky colors rather than butting up directly against the edges of the figure or other elements.
The sky was painted from the warmest area above the sailboat outward to the cooler areas. There is a slight purplish haze on the horizon of the ocean at the bottom, while above the colors move into muted reds, warm violets, and then to cool blues. I used a relatively small brush - a #6 hogshair filbert - to paint the sky, blending back and forth between the colors and letting the visible brushwork create a sense of vibration in the sky.
Tags: Ron Sanders, Surfside
