December 2023

Digital painting of a seaside landscape, tall brown rocks getting sprayed by big seafoam waves. The sky is overcast, and the sea is a shade of blue-green.

December 2nd

We report an afternoon by the sea. We have seen days when the wind blew very hard this year, and today much calmer in comparison, but the seaspray is hitting our face with a lot more strength than we expected. The sun is playing a losing game of hide-and-seek with the clouds.

Digital painting of a blue sky filled with wispy white clouds.

December 1st

We report on a day when the weather got colder. We stood outside for a short while, and our nose started running - a bit of that North wind, we think. This day, short and cold as it was, was bright when it had the chance to be, and we could not ask for much more than that.

Digital painting of a purple sky with some pink clouds, blurred around the edges and fading into the background colour.

December 4th

We report: the night is becoming distant, but the wind that had blown all night long is not relenting. Fast clouds are going and going, and the sun is rising very slowly, just a little bit, a bit more, and the pink clouds are crowding together but the sun has not risen yet.

Digital painting of a countryside landscape around twilight, overcast sky with some illuminated snowflakes falling.

December 3rd

We report a few snowflakes; the clouds when it snows, no matter how little, will always be the thickest. It is mid-afternoon, the night already weighing down on us like a blanket. The clouds have effectively put an end to this day in the quietest way possible.

Digital painting of a pale blue sky filled with long, thin grey clouds.

December 5th

We report: the air is dry and still this morning. We are nearing noon, and the frost that formed during the night remained unthawed as the sun remains low, low, when it laboriously drags itself across the sky. We can imagine this day bringing rain later on, if it gets warmer.

Digital painting of a dark sky with faint sunrise colours, mostly covered with long black clouds with wispy edges.

December 7th

We report about early morning after a long, windy night. Even now when a little bit of daylight is starting to show, gales are moving ink splashes across the sky at high speeds. We stayed in a foreign house overnight, and the strange noises kept us up long past our bedtime.

Digital painting of a cloudy sky, grey clouds entangled with one another. In a few spots, a slightly yellow/orangey light is coming through.

December 6th

We report: it is getting later into the afternoon, and something is going on above those clouds. Naturally, we would think it a sunset situation of some kind; we are probably correct in this assumption. We can see a few colours coming through. But we are also mostly seeing grey.

Digital painting of some dark blue clouds in a blue dusk sky.

December 11th

We report: we are standing by the light switch, wondering when to press it. We have been here for some time already, staring at the sky with such intensity that we cannot tell how much darker it has gotten anymore. We have a feeling we will be squinting here for a while longer.

Digital painting of a sunset scene over some mountains. The sky is taken by a gradient of pastel blue to yellow, a bright orange strip of clouds, and some dark grey clouds hanging over the mountains. The mountains are black with a few icy spots.

December 8th

We report about a situation that we have been in many times, our icy toes sacrificed in order to let us see the sunset through. We got betrayed by this mild December day, thought we would be fine when the sunlight waned; as the darkness spread, we cursed our lack of foresight.

Digital painting of a blue sky covered in white, more or less transparent cirrus clouds of various shapes.

December 9th

We report: cirrus take on a very lovely shine when the sun is just at the right spot in the sky, like the sun catching the curtains and pouring into a room. There could be a little cat curled up right there in a nice sun spot. We are waiting for our expert to call us for lunch.

Digital painting of a blue sky filled with very small, white clouds clumped together. The light has a very faint yellow tint to it.

December 21st

We report about early morning; a surprising amount of sunshine, such that we are concerned with just how much sunlight that will leave us with for the rest of the day. We had been, until then, quite conservative with sunshine, for the good reason of how limited it was.

Digital painting of a stormy kind of sky, dark grey clouds pooled together. Sunshine is coming in from the left-hand side of the frame, lighting the edge of some clouds white.

December 10th

We report about this sky, and about us trying to determine whether this is an oncoming storm or not. Our expert is not here today, so we are methodically describing the clouds to them on the phone. We could send them a picture, but this is a more interesting venture.

Digital painting of a subtle sunset sky, with peach and dark grey tones.

December 12th

We report from close enough to the Winter solstice that days are but long sunrises and sunsets; the sunsets, especially, seem to grab whole afternoons for themselves. Golden light seems to stop time, with the sepia tones it lends to the world. We watch those suspended moments.

Digital painting of a bright blue sky in which grey and white clouds float. There is a lot of contrast between where the light tints them yellow, and where the shadows turn them a dark grey-blue.

December 13rd

We report: here in the blue lie water and light, what the sky is for. The weight of the water for the weight of the shadows. We only had so much time to spend watching clouds today, but just a handful of minutes were enough to see the sky fully transformed when the light changed.

Digital painting of a lone, naked tree standing in a foggy countryside landscape.

December 14th

We report: you may try to walk between the droplets of fog in the air today; you may try as hard as you can, but you might find it arduous. At least, that is our experience. Our expert has opted out of coming with us on a walk, citing an excess of humidity. We understand.

Digital painting of a night landscape; a dark, opaque grey sky above a snowy field with a light of bare trees in the distance. There is a ray of light coming from out of frame, lighting a line of snow a bright white.

December 15th

We report a little while after the Geminids peak; it is all, of course, happening very, very high above these snow clouds. Our expert brought a torch, but the sky is scattering the city lights much better than we had anticipated. We stand between the low clouds and the new snow.

Digital painting of a sunset sky in bright colours, pinks, oranges and yellows; the frame is half covered by a big, dark purple cloud, and smaller ones floating around in the sky.

December 16th

We report: out of the billions of sunsets that this planet has known, this one is not any more or any less special than the ones that came before it. It seems, though, that our tiny little human brain cares very little about those numbers. This sunset is the most special.

Digital painting of some transparent, wave-like clouds in a pale blue sky.

December 17th

We report, from what we can understand, an array of cirrostratus undulatus; they are akin to very small waves brushing a shore. They also, effectively, work in a very similar way. A different kind of wind for a different kind of water. It is rather cold and windy down here.

Digital painting of some heavy clouds taking up most of the sky around sunrise, tinted a little bit yellow. A triangle of light green sky is visible in the lower right corner, where sunshine is coming through. A few birds are flying by far away.

December 18th

We report: clouds took over the sky as the sunrise was happening, thick and a little bit ominous. They were the sort of clouds that bring short showers - making you wonder, is it just me or is it raining right now? By the time you are convinced it is not, another shower comes.

Digital painting of a night sky full of bright stars, Ursa Major especially visible right in the centre. The dark outline of a countryside landscape can be seen at the very bottom of the frame. The sky is a gradient of black, to blue, to green on the

December 19th

We report, in these days of December: Ursa Major has been gracing our skies at nightfall as well as Draco, while the Bootes constellation slowly slips under the horizon. Many days, most of these stars are hidden, but in the right spot, at the right time, we may be so lucky.

Digital painting of a sunset, or sunrise sky; it is a sky horizontally split in two. In the top half, a large, dark purple sky with its underbelly a bright red. The bottom half is blue, almost completely covered by purple clouds.

December 20th

We report: it did not matter much what we had accomplished or not this year. At least not at that moment, when we looked up and thought that we only wanted more of this. More sky. More days. All of the clouds of this year, we did our best to catch, and next year will be the same.

Digital painting of a seaside landscape. The sky is overcast, but some oblique sun rays are shining through the clouds. The sea is grey and frothy, crashing on a rocky shoreline.

December 22nd

We report: it is a solstice day, though the solstice itself happened very early in the morning, and it is not like the Earth moved. Well; it did, and it is the point entirely, but not so we could feel it under our feet. So the day went on, and tomorrow will last a little longer.

Digital painting of an overcast sky at nightfall, a grey-purple kind of colour with faint pink tones in the lower, lighter parts of the sky. A bird is flying there, small and dark.

December 23rd

We report blue and grey tones merging together in such a way that we found them impossible to separate - pewter and slate, lead and graphite, charcoal and flint, colours that smell heavy in the air, mineral. The humidity was so thick that it caught in our throat when we breathed.

Digital painting of a blue sky at sunset, with long cumulus taking on grey-purple and pastel pink colours. The waxing moon is there, almost full, a feathery cirrus stretching above it.

December 24th

We report: one more fall into shadows, one more quick meeting between sun and moon. Winter is settling in like one sitting down after a hard day, creaking knees and careful movements. We have been staying up too late, clutching the slippery remaining hours of this year.

Digital painting of a mixed sky, white and grey, almost dark blue clouds in a blue sky. On top of some white clouds, a pattern of waves appears.

December 25th

We report, conspicuously hidden behind many, many clouds, a wonderful, extremely rare, and exciting manifestation of some Kelvin-Helmholtz waves sculpted by the wind shear. We are now able to remember this name, just so we may shout it out if we are faced with the phenomenon.

Digital painting of a dark cloudy sky at sunrise, deep grey above a dark field of tall grass. Two black birds are flying up there.

December 26th

We report: too early still, and colours have not returned to us yet. The grass is brittle like blades of glass - sounds like it, too, when we step on it. Our expert's boots are getting worn out, and we have been listening to them complaining about wet socks for a long time now.

Digital painting of a bright full moon glowing among dark clouds in the night sky. There are just a few stars dotting the naked parts of the sky around the moon.

December 27th

We report: you can fall in love with the moon, it is alright. You are allowed, and we will not tell anyone. You can just go and meet the moon whenever you want to (when it is visible in the sky). The moon is rather loveable after all, pretty and shiny with so many visages.

Digital painting of a dark cloud in a bright orange sky, its edges glowing bright yellow and orange like fire has caught onto it.

December 28th

We report about lava, glowing magma, an eruption, all the smoke all the fire. And we may stay here long after the embers have gone cold, until it has all turned into rhyolite and obsidian, slag and basalt under our feet, the ashes fallen to the ground; but the fire stays with us.

Digital painting of some grey clouds in a bright blue sky. They are cumulus, their edges are catching some light that turns them white with a faint note of yellow.

December 29th

We report a mystery, today. The sky is blue enough that we would not expect any rain, but every time we find ourselves outside, small showers happen. It is not much rain, per se, but it gets our expert to look up and all around with a perplexed expression on their face.

Digital painting of a grey sky, dark grey clouds forming strange, eerie shapes, holes and bumps and relief like a nonsensical landscape. A black bird is flying by.

December 30th

We report: sometimes, we think we know what to expect when it comes to the sky. We go a few days, maybe a couple of weeks without much happening, a rainbow perhaps, a contrail... We think we know the sky. It happens then, that the clouds twist and knit into impossibilities.

Digital painting of the sky at nightfall, a gradient of deep blue to light pink with a flock of numerous black birds flying towards the horizon, diagonally across the frame.

December 31st

We report: the wind is pushing we and the birds into the next year - no time to look back even if we wanted to. It hailed earlier, and we were wearing the wrong coat, so it stayed damp the whole afternoon. We would like to think this will not happen in the new year, but it will.

December 2023

January 2024

November 2023