Art Letter 5: Thank God They Cannot Cut Down the Clouds
That there’s a Thoreau quote.
This month’s art letter is about clouds.
Sky Pillows! Water Cotton! Vapor Fluff Bunnies! Pressurized Sighs! Diffused Sheep! Traveling Sky Erasers! Sunshine Cock Blockers!
Always there. Always shape-shifting. Always watering your parched gullet with their bursty ways.
Clouds are so tricksy and enigmatic to paint. C made me a special sketchbook for cloud studies where I can write the time, place and feeling of each sketch. Ain’t he the sweetest? The squirmy lightening bolt in my stomach granted me enough time to paint a few small gouache studies of clouds this month:
A summer thunderstorm barreling across rural Kansas
Grey puff-muffin clouds over the Washington coast
Sunset over the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado
Remembering what sort of cloud is what can be elusive and forgettable, so I’ve made you a flowchart to reference:
And of course, a selection of artists who I think render those aerial molecules with intrigue:
I’ve little else to write, because the cumulonimbus anvil in my uterus feels like a submarine plummeting into the depths of my personal mariana trench, and it’s extremely wit-sucking. If you’re inspired to delve into a love of clouds, allow me to suggest the Cloud Appreciation Society or read Cloud Atlas (the book, NOT the movie!).
Love bubbles,
Khara