"We are little apt, in watching the changes of a mountainous range of cloud, to reflect that the masses of vapor which compose it, are huger and higher than any mountain range of the earth; and the distances between mass and mass are not yards of air traversed in an instant by the flying form, but valleys of changing atmosphere leagues over; that the slow motion of ascending curves, which we can scarcely trace, is a boiling energy of exulting vapor rushing into the heaven a thousand feet in a minute; and that the toppling angle whose sharp edge almost escapes notice in the multitudinous forms around it, is a nodding precipice of storms, 3000 feet from base to summit."
- John Ruskin, Modern Painters: Of Truth of Clouds: Ch. III
Reading John Ruskin is either inspirational or paralyzing, depending on what else is going on that day. His five-volume Modern Painters is worth reading just to understand how high the bar is set for the rest of us.
While he would not likely praise my recent watercolor of cloud formations, I think I got a few things right. He comments in the same chapter that "if artists were more in the habit of sketching clouds rapidly, and as accurately as possible in the outline, from nature, instead of daubing down what they call effects with the brush" then there would result more truth and accuracy of form and effect. (By "sketching" he may be referring to oil painting quickly, in an alla prima technique.)
Clouds are extremely difficult to paint "live" because of their continuously changing effects. Generalizing defeats the point of painting them in the first place, but inevitably some generalizing takes place, I think.
