When I teach my Absolute Beginners painting class, I cover a little bit of the physics of why objects in the landscape appear the way they do, based on the way that light behaves. As an aside to that I sometimes get asked why the sky is blue. I also get asked that question occasionally when showing oil and acrylic skyscapes. I thought I’d answer that this month.
But first, a bit of background for those of you who fell asleep in History. Isaac Newton didn’t spend all afternoon sitting under an apple tree getting bumped on the head. He went indoors, drew the drapes and poked a hole in them. The tiny stream of whole-spectrum daylight that came through, he split into a rainbow with a prism, showing that white light is made up of all the colors. One of the ways colors are different is that the blue end of the spectrum, the short waves move around more vigorously than the longer waves at the red end.
Blue Sky Thinking:
When sunlight reaches atmospheric particles in the sky, blue light is scattered away more easily than other colors from the oxygen and nitrogen molecules because it’s moving faster. But wait a moment, you think, Indigo and Violet are further along the short/fast end of the spectrum than blue, so why isn’t the sky purple? That’s because the sensors (cones) in our eyes are designed to pick up blue, green or red and we’re able to see a lot of the blue and not much of the red that makes us think it’s purple. At the edge of the horizon, there is more atmosphere for the sunlight to be scattered around in, thus the horizon appears paler i.e. more white.
White cotton puffs:
If clouds are made of water and water is colorless, why are the clouds white? Again because of the scattering of light, but the surface of the water droplets scatter all colors almost equally, so the light bouncing off them remains white. And the gray clouds are just white clouds with shadows.
Red sky in the morning, red sky at night:
If the blue waves are scattered most, then red light waves are scattered least by atmospheric gas molecules, dust, etc. So at day’s edges, when the sunlight travels a longer path through the atmosphere to reach our eyes, the blue light has been mostly removed, leaving mostly red and yellow light remaining. The result is that the sunlight takes on an orange or red cast, which we can see reflected from clouds or other objects as a colorful sunset (or sunrise). This is different from the paler horizon when the sun is overhead because at sunrise/set the light is coming directly over the edge of the earth; the rest of the day it comes from overhead and has to travel through the atmosphere and back again to get to us. The red clouds at sunset are only getting red light waves, so they’re red too!
OK, enough science, back to art! This month I have just two art fairs, two classes and two shows. At the moment, life is as fluid as the sky itself. One other thing I do have is a few paintings that have gotten damaged along the way. Not enough that you can't enjoy the painting, but enough that they're going for a song. Check out the list if you're interested in a bargain: http://skyscapesforthesoul.com/pdfs/BargainRail.pdf
Fairs
Jul 5-7: Art in the Park, Flagstaff, AZ: (Oils and Acrylics)
Jul 13-14th: Los Altos Arts & Wine Festival, Los Altos, CA.
Shows
Jul 1st-29th: Group Membership Show, 29 Palms Art Gallery, CA.
Jul-Aug: Group Show, Chapparal Artists Center for Healthy Generations, Yucca Valley, CA.
Classes:
July 19th 9:30am-noon approx. Watercolor collage fun workshop $45 includes all materials. sm'Art Studio, La Quinta. Contact Alana at (760) 902 7985 by 5pm July 18th to book. Class maximum 10.
July 27th 9am-5pm approx. Painting for absolute beginners - 1-day class $110 includes all materials. Rainbow Stew, Yucca Valley, CA. Please wear clothes that you won't cry if you get paint on them, though I have a few smocks to share. Bring a snack lunch, the lunch break is short. Call/email gallery book by July 26th. Class maximum 6.
If you email me and then don't hear back within 48 hours, check your spam folder and if you don't find my response, call me.
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