We’re getting ready to travel across the country. I am anxious. The adage, “getting there is half the fun,” used to hold true for me. Not any more.

Is it the crowded airports? The waiting time? Taking all the various and sundry items out of each and every pocket of my cargo pants, vest, and jacket? Removing my shoes? And reversing the process after getting irradiated by those fancy scanners? Possibly… I never had a fear of flying itself… well only in the beginning when I saw the airplane wings flapping slightly. The fear of falling however, has increased over the years, probably for the same reason the airports are so crowded.

Today’s watercolor experiment?

Even though we are taking the red eye, a flight that departs at night and arrives in the morning, I painted an imaginary view from my airplane window – even though I sit on the aisle.

Process:

How does one paint clouds from above? Clouds in profile have a structure: Dark at the bottom or along the edges; fluffy at the top; they appear in various stages of formation and relative positions. Clouds, as seen from the top are just… fluffy, as I remember.

I flooded the paper with water (except for an island of dry paper) and spotted in Payne’s gray. I used a non-textured paper towel to soak up some of the pigment. I repeated the process with neutral tint and ivory black.

After all the clouds dried, I proceeded to paint little rectangles of farmland. I’m sure a farmer would be horrified to see actual fields arranged as I arranged my rectangles.

Comment:

I don’t know if the gray field of clouds resembles real clouds as seen from the top. They certainly are not the fluffy white ones of daytime flights. In fact, it appears as if we are looking up at the bottom of clouds. But if we are, what is that patchwork?

Perhaps I will have to wait for my date with the red-eye flight that travels through the night, to see what it really looks like.