Thunder Rolling In

6x6 watercolor using Daniel Smith paints in Master's Touch sketchbook, another in my imaginary skies series. With very little time to plan a new composition, I often will grab a sketchbook and lay in a tumultuous sky. Pray for rain! This sketchbook's paper is 80 lb. COPYRIGHT Kay Smith 2026

Revelation ~ reworked Trumpet of the Lord

22x15 watercolor and gouache done in May, a reworked scene that was an ascending angel above trees. It is now a mission with stormy skies, white doves, clouds and a foreboding that reminded me of the words in Revelation. I kept the trees at the bottom foreground. This is on 140 lb cold press paper. COPYRIGHT 2023 Kay Smith

Thai Boat

7.75x5 watercolor on Bristol board 300 series paper done over the past weekend as part of WetCanvas Weekend Drawing Event. Participants have 2 hours to choose an image and do a painting. Reference courtesy Dewi Saputra. COPYRIGHT 2022 Kay Smith

Pumpjack Stormy Skies

11x15 watercolor on Fabriano 140 lb cold press rough paper completed over the weekend, a west Texas landscape at dusk with a pumpjack working hard. Stormy skies are overhead and nighttime is approaching in this dramatic oilfield from one of my petroleum photos. COPYRIGHT 2020 Kay Smith

Thunder

5x7 India ink on Canson watercolor paper 140 lb/cold press done in the last weeks of InkTober last month.  In this imaginary landscape, angry black clouds are boiling overhead, about to hit the earth.
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kay Smith.

Sandhill Cranes in Flight

3.5x5 watercolor on 140 lb Fluid block paper done over last weekend for an online event.  The sandhill cranes are back, not in large numbers, but can be seen overhead and around town.  The rainy skies add a fall/autumn touch.
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kay Smith

Backcountry Barn

12x9 watercolor on Fluid 140 lb cold press paper sketched this morning then painted this afternoon, an imaginary country scene of a rundown old barn.  The rocky landscape foreground was fun to paint wet in wet in layers as was the middle ground.  The fence is still up so suppose someone is running cattle.  Storm clouds are building up overhead. When dry, splattering was done for texture.
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kay Smith.

Woman in White Dress at Beach

11x15 watercolor imaginary scene done today using no references so hope the clouds and woman look proportional and in scale.  A light pencil drawing of the woman was first but no drawing done for clouds or ocean.  I did forget to put some seagulls flying overhead but can add them later.  This one will accompany my December Living magazine article our local newspaper, the Big Spring Herald, publishes.  You can make up your own story for this seascape.  What is she looking at, thinking of, or about to do? Meet a lover? Pray? Sunbathe? Watching a storm develop?
Image COPYRIGHT 2015 Kay Smith.

Soaring Seagull

22x15 watercolor on 140 lb cold press Kilimanjaro paper with limited palette of ultramarine and Prussian blues, quinacridone burnt orange and gold, and raw umber.  This gull was done today from one of many shore bird photos taken thru the years.  I see them soaring overheard from my office window every day on their way to Comanche Trail lake nearby.  The sky is today's mix of clouds, sun, storms brewing, etc.
Image is COPYRIGHT 2015 Kay Smith.

February Snowy Landscape

11x15 watercolor of a rural road covered in snow with a dreary winter sky above.
Image is COPYRIGHT Kay Smith.

Sandstorm with Pumpjacks

22x30 watercolor on 140 lb cold press Saunders Waterford paper. An imaginary west Texas scene, it is complete with distant buildings and oilfield pumpjacks silhouetted against a hot stormy sky.  A lone pumpjack is busy in the near foreground, a cotton field.  With the recent discovery of the huge Cline Shale in our own Howard County, I'm sure to paint many more scenes, so stay tuned.

Sandstorm

22x30 watercolor, another one painted wet on dry, American Journey paints, in Francese workshop mid-October. Now these colorful skies are exactly what we see in West Texas! Even the greenish tint in the clouds perfectly complements the reddish glow of that awful hot sand.