clouds

I have a fascination for clouds. It all started a few years ago when I was taking an art class with a friend who was also a professional artist, and an excellent teacher. She started us out by having us draw with charcoal and them with colored pastels. I never did get very good. We only had a few classes. We started with apples, and pears, and then we went to eggs. An egg was such a mystery to me. The idea of drawing something white, that has no colors baffled me. The color had to be in the background and the shading on the egg has to be minimal and create the shape. I never did quite get it right, before my lessons ended. But then I began to notice the complexities of clouds, and someday, (it may be the eternities before I get around to it) I want to learn to draw a cloud, with darks and lights and even innuendos of color.
The other day outside my window I saw the most amazing sky. I couldn't get a picture fast enough, and even if I had, the camera never gets the colors as beautifully as they really were. There were two layers of clouds, the higher cirrus clouds were colored with light pinks and yellows, while the lower stratus clouds were moving past more quickly and were light greens, and gray, maybe a little blue, with patches of violet sky peeking through. The colors were soft and delicate and amazing. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it.

Here are some pictures I did get, on different days.