On a skywriting plane, the sky is a kind of huge whiteboard, and you can use that huge whiteboard to write things. This is a topic I discuss in my books on writing and advertising, but seeing as it is something that I do all the time, I thought I’d put together some resources for those who are interested.
Text:
Skywriting 101: A blog about writing the sky.
A good place to begin is an essay I wrote back in 2006: How To Write The Sky: A Primer. It will tell you everything you need to know about what skywriting is, how it works and how it differs from conventional advertising.
And if you want to read my thoughts on the role of skywriting in imaginative literature, check out this post.
OK, here are some examples of my work:
Here’s how to write the sky (and what it says): [link]
An example of how to write the sky with a single plane: [link]
And an example of how to write the sky with multiple planes: [link]
A blog about skywriting and other ways of writing the sky. Also contains short stories and poetry.
The blog is run out of the United Kingdom, but some posts are written by people in other countries.
Here’s a story I’ve never been able to tell and in the process, find a new way of looking at what it takes to be an artist.
I was out with my son and a couple of his friends when they spotted some skywriting over the beach. They were all very excited and wanted to know how it was done.
“Well,” I said, “It’s exactly like writing on the ground, but you have to remember that the paper is moving.”
It was years before I finally got around to doing it myself.
I learned that there are many different kinds of smoke. Some are thick and heavy, some thin and wispy. There’s even one kind that lights up like a fluorescent bulb.
But what caught my attention was the number of different ways you can write in the sky, from straight lines and simple curves to complex shapes that looked like animals or letters from another alphabet.
But all of them required great skill and coordination, both for drawing the design on paper before takeoff, then for actually flying the plane so as to make precise movements over time with great accuracy — often less than an inch per second — while keeping the plane perfectly level with only one hand on the controls. And some smoke trails simply defy description.
You can write the sky with almost any kind of smoke, but there are a few things to keep in mind:
In order to be visible from a long distance away, your smoke has to be dense. The particles have to be about the same size as the wavelength of visible light. Particles that are much smaller will scatter light and make the smoke look white. Particles that are much larger will create a haze, which might give you more contrast but will not make your writing readable.
To make your writing last longer than just a few seconds, you want to use fuel with a low molecular weight. (If you are in the US, this means you want fuel that contains mostly propane or natural gas.) Fuels with higher molecular weights will give you more bang for your buck in terms of energy content, but they will also evaporate faster and leave you with nothing but fumes.
Flames tend to create too much contrast with smoke to be readable at distance. If you want flames, put them behind the smoke so they show up only by silhouette.
Because smoke dissipates quickly in air, you have to use it fast once you start writing. You can extend it somewhat by putting up multiple lines of smoke close together and then having them blow apart.”
Skies are one of the most difficult things to draw. There are few flat surfaces: they’re either curved, or they’re interrupted by clouds, birds, towers, etc. And clouds are among the most difficult things to draw: they’re made up of millions of little irregular shapes.
So let’s talk about them!
I’m going to assume you want your sky to be realistic in some degree, and not just a solid blue background. For that you need to understand the basic features of skies: clouds, light direction and intensity, the color of the sky, and how all these interact with each other.
Tone
How dark is the sky? How bright is it? It’s hard to have a dark sky without having a sun in it. Well, what does that matter? If you don’t have a sun in your picture then you don’t have any source for light, do you?
No; what I mean is that if your picture has no source for light then there will be no shadows in it. If there are no shadows then there can be no dark areas because shadows give depth to objects and shapes. So if you don’t have a sun then your sky will end up looking like a plain piece of blue paper with nothing on
I use the term “fantasy art” to distinguish it from science fiction art and illustration for role-playing games and the like. I’m interested in what is depicted, and in how the artist chooses to depict it, as opposed to how well it depicts something that could be real, or how much research went into getting the technical details right.
Academic fantasy art tends towards realism: a painting of a dragon will try to show you what a dragon would look like if you were close up to one, rather than trying to make you feel like you are there. The paintings often have a weird atmosphere not found in science fiction comics and illustrations.
The difference is that much academic fantasy art is painted from imagination, whereas professional science fiction art and illustrations are drawn from photographs or models, even when they depict imaginary things. The artist is aiming for accuracy of depiction; the viewer is supposed to think about the world being depicted.
In contrast, fantasy art aimed at evoking wonder or emotion doesn’t need accuracy of depiction: an imaginary creature can look more interesting if it isn’t accurate. Accuracy is less important than mood, composition and narrative action.
