but the sky is for all

"The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few ..... but the sky is for all; bright as it is, it is not 'too bright, nor good for human nature's daily food'; it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it and purifying it from its dross and dust."
- John Ruskin, Modern Painters, 1843

I've been going through past sketches and studies to see what I can pick up on and develop further. Sometimes these little things will sit around for years and then all of a sudden the time comes where I pick one up and it starts me thinking. These are from 2005. I barely remember doing them (they were in a pile of others) but I must have done them on the spot, outside somewhere, after a rain storm, probably down on the Jersey shore. These little watercolor studies always have an immediacy and reality that I like and want to carry over into my more finished work.