The ancient art of skywriting is a long lost, largely forgotten form of ancient communication technology. It is a truly remarkable and awe inspiring art form, which lends itself to the creation of some amazing works of art.
While in recent years, this form of art has fallen out of favor in many parts of the world, it can still be regularly seen during athletic games and other events where a message needs to be displayed in the sky.
In recent times, however, people have begun to take notice of this ancient art and begin to create their own works of skywriting. This blog is dedicated to artists who have created works of skywriting, as well as those who wish to do so in the future. Here you will find links to videos and photos from around the world that highlight the beauty and history behind this remarkable technique.**
**This section does not have a link because I got lazy but you should look up pictures if you want to see what it looks like**
As an artist I have worked with many materials, but creating art in the sky is one that I find particularly interesting. As you can see from my photos on this blog, there are several types of skywriting. There is the traditional “skytyping” which involves the use of smoke to create letters and designs in the sky. There is also “skypainting” which uses water vapor to create similar effects. The most common type of skywriting is what I would refer to as “sign writing.” This involves the use of a smoke generator attached to a plane to make custom ad copy for clients.
Tandemskydiving has emerged as an art form in its own right, with artists performing breathtaking aerobatic routines that look like pictures from a dream. Check out my website for more information about tandem skydiving and other forms of aerial artistry.
I hope you will enjoy my blog and feel free to contact me if you are interested in learning more about creating art in the sky or if you would like to book one of my shows.
I’m a professional Skywriter, an artist who creates art in the sky. I started with skywriting, but my artwork has grown and evolved to include other aerial mediums. I’ve been doing this for over 40 years and have made thousands of skywriting and sky drawing creations.
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You can see galleries of my work, videos of my in-flight performances, and read about the process I use to create art in the sky.
You can also contact me directly from this site if you’re interested in hiring me for your next event or creating original artwork for your business or organization.
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Skywriters were first used by advertisers to draw attention to their billboards at sporting events or on street corners. But our medium is limited only by the imagination; we write words and pictures, even whole stories! Skywriters have written messages to celebrate major achievements like the Apollo missions, political campaigns (like Kennedy’s 1960 presidential bid), popular movies, celebrity weddings and birthdays, sport championships… the list is endless. We’ve also written pop songs and produced logos for major corporations. We are often called upon to write special messages for individuals who have experienced tragedy or loss.
Example: In 2002, the owner of a small business had his store destroyed by
I had been talking with Peter about the idea of skypoetry for more than a year. I had discovered that there is a history of people writing messages in the sky, usually for special occasions. It started with “Au revoir” written in smoke by French aviators at the end of World War I, and later came messages like “Marry Me Jane” and “I Love You Jackie.”
In October 2003, I was working on designs for my first full-scale firework display, a birthday celebration for my father (then 68) though the event would also celebrate my brother and me as well. I decided to combine art and personal expression with this event. I wanted to send a message in the sky, but what should it be? As we discussed ideas with Peter that day, we realized that this could become an annual tradition. In 2004, we would use Roman numerals; in 2005 using Greek letters; in 2006 using Chinese characters; perhaps even making it an international event by 2007. After all, it would involve some research to find out how best to arrange the words so that they would look good from several miles away.
In 2004, the skywriting was much more complicated than just shooting off Roman numerals from fireworks. My
The art of skywriting is a combination of the old and new, combining the ancient art of signalling and the science and technology of hot air balloons.
Sky writing is exactly what it sounds like, and has been around for almost as long as hot-air balloons have been around. It was first used in 1877 to advertise “Dr. Kane’s Arctic Balsam,” a patent medicine for treating arthritis. Back then, using ground-based telescopes or binoculars, pilots could write almost anything they wanted in the sky.
Floating through the air inside a basket strung under a massive balloon, pilots would use long pointed sticks to scrawl out messages or even draw pictures in the sky. The early sky writers carried a bag of white sand that they would dump out behind them as they wrote so that their writings would stand out against the blue background of the sky.
Towards the end of World War I, French and American pilots also used skywriting as a code to signal troop movements and other information back to their bases on the ground.
Today, while many companies still use skywriting to advertise their products, most people recognize it from its use by sports teams during games. The Dallas Cowboys are famous for their use of skywriting while they fly
Back to that old idea of the sky as the canvas. Of course, there is a lot of art in the sky already. Clouds, plane trails, sunsets, moonrises and sunsets. So what I mean is really more like an art installation. Something that has a life of its own, outside of just being a pretty picture. Something that creates an ongoing experience for people as they pass by or see it from a distance.
Thing is, there are two big obstacles to doing this kind of thing. You need special permission to do it and you need special equipment to do it.
The special permissions come from getting a waiver from the FAA but usually they charge you money for the waiver and they don’t turn them out so easily. So if you want to do a project of this kind you are probably going to have to spend some money on lawyers and lobbyists and things like that. Most people don’t have the resources for this kind of thing so they end up doing more conventional kinds of art in the sky instead.
The special equipment comes from needing either to have your own plane or else to rent one with equipment on board that can create smoke trails on command. Of course if you had your own plane then you wouldn’t need a waiver from the
Skywriting is the art of creating human-made clouds in the sky, or more generally in the upper atmosphere. Professional skywriters generally use smoke generators or other techniques to create their clouds. The term “skywriting” was coined in 1914 by Adolph Zukor, referring to a message written by airplane in the skies over Los Angeles.
Tobacco companies also began hiring skywriters to promote cigarette brands. Skywriting is primarily used for advertising and special events. Skywriting is also used for creating something resembling a news headline, as it was done in Canberra, Australia in October 2013 to announce that Prince George of Cambridge had been born earlier that day. In China, Pyongyang and Shanghai, skywriters have been used to send political messages across cities.
Story-telling has been another popular use of skywriting, with famous stories such as “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “The Lord’s Prayer” being written in the sky for public gatherings and celebrations.
