Inspiration and Results!

In August, my daughter and I took a trip to Indiana. It was uneventful until the drive home that evening. We were greeted just around the bottom of Lake Michigan with a rather treacherous thunderstorm, the magnitude of which we didn't really see until after we'd passed through it and could look at the unbelievable clouds which reached into the heights of the sky! Quite dramatic during the storm, and equally dramatic after the storm! As I snapped reference photos, I thought that capturing the drama of the storm clouds would make wonderful subject matter!

After the Storm, 11 x 14" Oil on Canvas ©2009, Helen Read 

As you can see - the storm was the inspiration, and the reference photo helped me to capture much of it, but changes were made! Painting clouds - even white clouds, requires very little plain white paint - many glazes of the undertones of color are added. And, in this one, I combined some other reference photos to get the landscape. It was an amazing sight! One not ever to be fully captured in paint or held past the moment ~ except in the mind's eye of the beholder. For me, it is a powerful testament to the awesome power of God, whose display of grandeur can be seen in so many "everyday" things around us - and yet, who protects us!