Dialogue by Mark:

Reptiles live in nearly every natural habitat in the world, from deserts to jungles to the open ocean. You would be able to find rock-hopping lizards in the landscape shown in today's Masters' Gallery...probably basking in the sun on the rocks by the river. Kim Solga, our biologist of art history, found us this beautiful painting by the American artist Albert Bierstadt at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Along with the gold rush, trappers and explorers, and settlers moving west in covered wagons, it was also popular for artists to travel out into the frontier to paint the spectacular scenery of the American west. Albert Bierstadt is one of the most fameous of these artists. He journeyed into the mountains and the wilderness, carrying his paints and canvases by horseback. He even came north to paint Mount Shasta, the huge volcano in northern California where KidsAret and Kim, our resident art hsitorian, live.

This painting is titled Yosemite Valley, created by Bierstadt on location when he visited this incredible valley in the high Sierras. The towering cliffs make the two people and their horse appear tiny. Then the towering clouds make the cliffs themselves seem small.

Notice how Bierstadt painted the clouds, with light streaming down between the huge thunderheads. The light falls in patches on the landscape, lighting up some areas brightly and leaving other parts in shadow.

A good way to practice painting clouds with watercolors is to draw a mountain or hills on good white paper with lots of sky above. Paint the whole sky with plain water so the paper's all wet. Mix some blue and quickly cover the whole sky, all at once. Then use Kleenix to dab up some of the blue, leaving paper-white fluffy clouds behind. Try it!