I recently posted a few Instagram reels of this painting in progress that sparked a lot of interest. I thought you might like to see how I arrived at this composition.
Since most of my landscapes aren’t the scenes where I live, I make the most of my travel time by planning ahead to be at the right location at the right time of day with my camera. Often, there just aren’t any clouds around to make for an interesting sky. I frequently match my landscape, seascape, marshes and trees with my photographs of skies and clouds taken elsewhere. [NOTE: it’s important if you do this to pay attention to the direction of the light and time of day.]
Below are the reference photos I used to arrive at my new painting, Clouds Go Floating By:
My twin sister sent me the first photo that she took from her home in Prescott, Arizona. I loved the different blues and the way the cloud on the right was casting a shadow on the further cloud. This was the starting point, and then I started thinking about what kind of landscape to match it with. I decided on second photo, which I took at Cannon’s Point Preserve on Saint Simons Island, Georgia.
Using Photoshop Elements, I placed the cropped and adjusted marsh into the sky photo. This was the reference photo I used in my painting. If I make another version, it will definitely be titled, “Fly Me to the Moon."