Sky part II – Constable Clouds

Sky part II – Constable Clouds 

June 24, 2018

Sky Part II Constable Clouds Acrylic 16"x20"

The Inspiration

 

John Constable 1776–1837
Cloud Studies 1822
Constable’s oil studies of skies show a remarkable understanding of the structure and movement of clouds. Most also give a good impression of their three-dimensional volume. 

Gallery label, February 2004

The studies vary in size. Above is one of only four examples painted by Constable on a larger format. The larger the scale the more difficult he found it to balance crispness of detail with speed of execution. This is why the larger cloud studies tend to be more generalized. The inscriptions on the back – ‘11 o’clock’ and ‘Noon’ – indicate that this study took him about an hour to paint.

Cannon looked at several of the 1822 cloud studies by John Constable before choosing this one as his inspiration for this next sky-scape.

Contrails and Jet Propulsion

 

But before he started work on the second canvas that he had prepared at the last session we had another experiment on jet propulsion and the contrails that we see in the sky.

First we tied a string to the top of the storage closet door, and then we stretched it across the dining room and into the living room. We threaded the string through a drinking straw.

Mom blew up the balloon and holding tight to the end with Cannon’s help attached it to the straw (the fuselage of our plane).

After the count down Cannon released the balloon and watched it take off across the rooms to the top of the closet door.  We completed the experiment several times noticing the difference in the balloon's flight when the string was loose or taught. 

I pulled the string straight up, perpendicular to the floor so that Cannon could see that a vehicle could travel straight up from the earth to space outside our atmosphere. I mentioned Arthur C. Clark’s concept of a Space Elevator that he wrote about in his novel The Fountains of Paradise. Now that is something to wonder about.

Fact or Fiction

 

Cannon may see this concept become a reality: 
“Sep 6, 2000 - Inspired partly by science fiction, NASA scientists are seriously considering space elevators as a mass-transit system for the next century.”

Putting Paint on Canvas

At last it was time to study the Constable Cloud inspiration and pick up the paint brushes.

White paint was placed on the prepared canvas and Cannon used his large round brush to make curved and rounded brush strokes on the canvas. He also experimented with a “double brush”.

Lots of energy went into this process as he pulled his brushes across the canvass with speed and direction similar to our propulsion experiment.

He took a couple of short breaks between the action on the canvas. He added some gray brush strokes before setting his brushes aside.

Breakfast Break

 

We stopped for a breakfast break before cleaning up our materials and putting away our supplies. Cannon did the wet clean up and I stowed away our equipment.

We had enough time to play a fun round of our Frog and Toad Game, then it was time to move on into the rest of a lovely summer Sunday.