On painting, I am agreeing on undercoat (over the gesso or primer) being white. I'm less inclined to think it is a simple one-white and, then, two - blue, if one is going for realism.
But, you can play with this on small prestretched and primed canvases.
Another thought, probably not what you are interested in, is to paint a big canvas - say 4 x 5 feet, stretched on custom stretcher bars, and frame it as a window or skylight in the middle of the room, and paint the rest of the ceiling to match the walls.
My own bias is not to paint clouds on a ceiling, but I didn't always feel that way, and I wish you luck and fun in the doing, Chai.
Oh, and yes, I'd love to see pictures..
osso, my point was never paint the cloud OVER the sky , as it is in nature. Instead paint the sky around the clouds. It makes the clouds pop out . Its a trick, It was employed by all the Calif plein air and Connecticut Impressionists.
One of my old teachers in illustration, a guy named Coggins, always had us do skies over clouds. Ive never doubted the results in both wc, pastels, and oil . In egg tempera, for some reason, its not as effective.
chai, if you can rent some scaffolding Its probably the safest way. You can lie on your back and paint away without getting headaches or really stiff neck.
We did a class project years ago of Michealangelos hand of God coming out and touching a plate of fried chicken. This was for a restaurant ceiling, for a restaurant that only lasted a few years in the area. (It was Sid Stein's Chapel of CHicken)
cute name , neat idea, shitty chicken.
I did understand your point, farmer.
I'll read up and look some more re the CA impressionists. I've seen many of the paintings, haunter of the Joan Irvine collection that I am, but never zeroed in on that.
In the meantime, to each his own.
