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Red Sky

Red
sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning.

I love the idea of this foreboding premonition sign as a narrative tool and using the latter half of this classic saying fit perfectly.

The phrase comes from millennia of weather forecasting and is a well-known meteorological prediction by judging the glow of evening or morning clouds relating to nearby storms; the changing of weather systems flowing from west to east.

This foreboding event will be the very beginning of the storyline...the calm before the storm. All seems well, but hell is unknowingly on the horizon.


                                                                                                                                         Jason Bartlett ©

Here is my first visualisation of the red sky in the morning. A speed painting taking around three hours using Photoshop and a handful of photo references. It was great getting back into seascape painting, and was a fun and easy start to tackling more complex images later on.


                                                                                                                                         Jason Bartlett ©

I enjoyed experimenting with hard and soft flat brushes as well as, vibrant reds and orange tones; mixing into different cloud formations and layers.


                                                                                                                                         Jason Bartlett ©

 To really sell the image and make it come to life like a photograph, I used several effects post-painting. These varied from lens distortion, to adding noise and film grain in Photoshop. This brings a further element of realism, closely imitating camera results to the final image.

While painting this piece, I recorded the entire process into a video! Check out the time-lapse of the speed painting right here.
Thanks for reading :)

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