Smudgy Clouds and Art Conventions

Sometimes real life looks kind of fake. Or it would if you tried to paint it. Lurid pink, purple and orange sunsets. Up close detail of tree bark. 

Or this morning's low hanging clouds over Toronto. They look like poor use of the Photoshop smudge tool. 

When painting, we sometimes stick to conventions based on viewer expectation instead of what nature actually looks like. It's rooted in the same impulse that children use when always picking blue for colouring skies even though in they may just as often be grey.