Kaspar and Clouds

Cloudscape – Lee Campbell

The Dreaming – Lee Campbell

Clouds – nephology or cloud physics

For the last 20 years I have been painting clouds – and can’t be sure exactly why.  I often look to create a timeless quality in my paintings and clouds seem to be one of those timeless things, constantly fluctuating and affecting everything from our mood to our climate. They can be dark and toxic or as light and lacy as white angels with as many shapes as we can possibly imagine. The essentials of the modern nomenclature system for tropospheric clouds (those forming in the lowest major layer of the atmosphere) were proposed by Luke Howard a British manufacturing chemist and an amateur meteorologist with broad interests in science, in an 1802 presentation to the Askesian Society. Since 1890, clouds have been classified and illustrated in cloud atlases with most cloud genera divided into species, varieties, or both, based on specific physical characteristics of the clouds. This was the beginning of a study that allowed artists to understand the basic structures of clouds and since then they have used them in a variety of spectacular ways:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21034217  Berndnaut Smilde creating actual clouds.

In painting, clouds make a flexible pictorial device which can be employed to create perspective or suggest wind movement and when naturalism is no longer an issue the clouds can be any colour or shape that the artist can imagine. My personal favourite naturalistic cloud painting is by Vermeer:

View of Delft – Vermeer

Can you identify these painted clouds?

Test your knowledge  on this site:

http://www.windows2universe.org/art_and_music/cloud_art/clouds_in_art.html

Some amazing cloud phenomena:

Some of the more fantastic examples can be seen on this site:

http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/60-insane-cloud-formations-from-around-the-world-pics/

See video of Gavin Preton-Pinney’s delightful lecture on the Joy of Clouds:

The Cloud Appreciation Society

Sky details from my paintings

Clouds 1 – Lee Campbell

Cloud 5 – Lee Campbell

Cloud 6 – Lee Campbell

Cloud 3 – Lee Campbell

Cloud 9 – Lee Campbell

Blue & Gold oil on canvas Lee Campbell

Happy to see that The Savoy is continuing to inspire artists:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/a-homage-to-kaspar-the-friendly-cat-checks-in-at-the-savoys-new-eatery-8600305.html

Kaspar

I had been commissioned to make paintings of The Savoy during the re fit for The Byrne Bros and this included a large painting encompassing details from the Savoy including the lovely cat Kaspar – see detail below:

Kaspar – detail from painting of The Savoy by Lee Campbell