Spent the morning in my car, watching a thunderstorm roll in. Something about the way clouds build up before the storm – like a slow-motion explosion.
Turner got it right. You don’t paint the storm – you paint the air being pushed around by the storm. Been studying his seascapes lately.
Had my sketchbook propped against the steering wheel. Quick gestural studies of cloud movements. They move faster than you think. Like trying to draw a running animal.
There’s this moment just before the rain hits. The air gets heavy. Trees go still. Nature holds its breath. That’s the moment I’m trying to capture.
Found some old weather maps at a library book sale. The way meteorologists draw air pressure systems – it’s all about flow. Not so different from figure drawing, really.
Did you know lightning branches follow the same patterns as river deltas and tree growth? Fractals, they call it. Nature using the same patterns at different scales. Makes you think about mark-making differently.
The wind changed direction during my sketching session. Had to start a new page. Weather doesn’t care about your composition plans.
Remembered something from high school science – warm air rises, cool air sinks. Simple physics creating these massive, complex forms. Been trying to sketch that process. Not easy.
Rain streaks are tricky. Everyone draws them as simple diagonal lines. But look closer next time. They curve. They scatter. They create patterns in the air.
My coffee stayed hot today – brought a thermos. Learning from experience.
Started thinking about how different cultures draw weather in their art. Japanese woodblock prints of rain hit differently than European oil paintings of storms. Both true, both capturing something unique.
Met a meteorologist at the coffee shop (recognized the weather maps in my sketchbook). She showed me how they diagram storm systems. Changed my whole approach to cloud structure.
Back to those fractal patterns – saw them again in the way small waves ripple out from raindrops hitting puddles. Everything connects. Nature keeps teaching if we keep looking.
The hardest part about drawing weather? It never stops moving. Like trying to draw a dance. You have to catch the essence of the movement, not just the shapes.
Speaking of movement – watched leaves being thrown around by the wind today. Better than any dance performance. Nature’s choreography puts us all to shame.
Tried a new technique – using erasers to pull light out of dark storm clouds. Like lightning revealing cloud structures. Happy accidents in art sometimes work better than careful planning.
Oliver hates thunder. Spent the afternoon with a scared cat in my lap, which made sketching interesting. But his tensed posture actually helped me understand how energy builds before a lightning strike.
The storm’s passing now. Sky’s doing that thing where dark clouds get lined with gold. Turner would have loved this moment. Time to start a new page.
Soon, I’ll share some techniques for capturing different types of clouds. But right now, the post-storm light is doing something interesting to the wet streets. My sketchbook is calling.
And yes, I did eventually get out of my car. But not before filling ten pages with cloud studies. Some days you just have to let nature lead the lesson.
