The idea

.... was to create large canvases depicting multi-layered Northern England skies, with a sliver of rooftops across the bottom, possibly in silhouette,possibly in greys and pale yellows, as I'd seen back lit walls turn in cold, early morning sunlight.

I've been struck by LS Lowry's skies. They look blank in reproductions in books, but in real life (and we're lucky to have some originals in Sunderland Winter Gardens) there's a lot more to them.

I've also been stunned by Schiele's flat white skies, with depths of colour behind. They make me want to grab a palette knife and start smearing.

So, for the last week or so I've been peering intently at the sky any time of day I can, and amazed at how we seem to never get simple weather. There's always so many layers - high thin clouds in horizontal wisps, banks of thick dense cloud, lit wonderfully around 16.30 as I leave work, and often, when there's a strong, wet wind, these fantastic streaks of rain-laden cloud screaming across in front of all that. And yet, they clear sky peering through is the translucent blue of a newborn babies eyes.

So, the drawing on the earlier post was an early attempt, with only a pencil to hand, to capture these skies.

The second part is the rooftops I love. So, this afternoon I ventured out to draw some, literally round the back of my house. As I said, my first idea was to have these as almost back silhouettes at the bottom of the picture, but when I've looked back through the drawings i made, I love the lines they describe. So I'm thinking of leaving them as outlines, laid over the skies, still at the bottom as an anchor almost, but looser, more linear and drawn livelier than flat shapes.

Now I'm off out to draw more rooftops in charcoal. This feels very exciting.