We are having a lot of weather here at the moment. It’s a typical Florida summer.
The day starts clear and bright, then, as the heat rises to almost unbearable temperatures, the clouds bubble up from the west. By 3.00 or often earlier, huge apocalyptic thunderstorms sweep across the flat Florida landscape and just as quickly subside.
The relief from the heat can be short lived and the evening slips back to being calm and still, hot and airless. It’s something I will always remember about our time here, so in between working on the commissions I sketched a few clouds. There is not what you would call “a view” from our terrace just the rooftop of the opposite apartments, some tree tops and then sky..
There are clouds with holes in them…
Towers of vertical clouds crossed with horizontal floating bands
Big puffy clouds which seem to link the land and the sky.
Bright edges of clouds
. 
Layers of dark rain soaked clouds which are so low you feel you could touch them. They move swiftly, obliterating everything.
And then, over the old buildings of Baldwin Park Naval base across the lake there are the high trailing clouds of early evening.
Another storm has just passed over and it’s raining right now.
These little sketches cannot do justice to the magnificence of these skies. These are the skies which make you believe in Sky Gods. We are going away for a few days but I think sky studies will resume next week.
love "lake cloud" and "cloud 4s"; you got it on those, I think. Isn't art amazing? I'm thinking of a … Chinese calligraphy artist poised; the eye cocked and off the hand goes to make the marks and sometimes the arrow hits and sometimes less so. Nice work that.
Your sketches are a great record of the clouds you see – never an easy subject
Great sky with great clouds!
Love your art!
Really pretty. An inspiring exercise…
Love it! You have captured exactly why I don't think I could happily live anywhere else, this is truly Big Sky country….
I live on the other side of earth – the bottom half, where we are coming to the end of what was a mostly mild winter. I live in Namibia, and lived in the desert for many years. We sometimes would go for months without clouds and this period, as the days start hinting of warming up I really start to miss seeing clouds in the sky. Some years winters get really murky, if there were many fires in Zambia and the Caprivi, and the first nice cloud build ups (like the ones in your description and images) just clear it up.
Having been a desert person for the majority of my life, clouds become a bit of an obsession.
Thank you all. What with being away and packing and selling up and trying to do comissions I have been a bit busy but I do read and am delighted by all your comments.
I think I am a bit rusty at these loose watercolour sketches but its just good to do something everyday if you can!