Painting a stormy sky with its dark, dramatic clouds or the pinks and reds of a sunset is very appealing. A little knowledge about the common cloud forms and their characteristics will help you to capture these scenes and enable you to add credible clouds to any painting.
How to Paint A Cloudy Sunset Sky
There are lots of different ways to paint all types of clouds. I like to paint wispy clouds in a cloudy sunset sky because they are simple, easy, and perfect for beginner painters! I often use this technique in my landscape paintings and am going to show you how I paint these feathery clouds to match my Paradise Beach painting!
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The thing I love about painting skies is, no two are the same. Every time you look up at the sky, you see another one of Gods beautiful creations.
Before you start on a canvas, make sure to practice your clouds in a mixed media pad. Get used to the feel of the movements your hand is making. Painting takes practice. The more you mess around with it, the more you give yourself the freedom to play and not be so serious. Art is not about perfection; it’s about creating, having fun, and relaxing.
Making these brush strokes will do all that for you!
Materials Mentioned
- Mixed Media Pad
- Acrylic Paint Bright Blue, White, Lavender, Pink
- Filbert or Flat Brush
A few weeks ago, we learned the basics in blended acrylic paint and painted a sunset sky, but this a different type of blending that will give you a cloudy new outcome! Make sure to watch the full video painting tutorial below.
Use X shape brush strokes
With a Filbert or flat brush, start by messily making X strokes with bright blue and white paint to work across the top of the canvas. Unlike my heavily textured backgrounds, keep your brush bristles connected to the surface to create a smoother brushstroke blend. Start with quite a bit of paint on your brush, but then keep blending without reloading too often for a wispier feel.
Moonlit Clouds – Acrylic Painting Lesson
Learn to paint Moonlit Clouds from start to finish in this roughly forty-five minute lesson. All the details of this painting are covered, from painting the moon, to the sky, and the clouds. You’ll see lots of close up shots to show the brushstroke technique used to create the shapes and highlights that make up this painting.
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How to Paint Cumulus Clouds
Think of the strong winds that whip up these clouds, and try to translate this action into brush strokes. Work fast and energetic not slow and painstakingly meticulous. Resist the temptation to make these clouds white with dark shadows. Clouds reflect colors and may include reds, mauves, yellows, grays. Concentrate on the shadows, which give the clouds shape.
Suggested colors include alizarin crimson for pink tints; yellow ochre and cadmium orange for golds; Payne’s gray or burnt sienna mixed with one of the blues used in the sky, for shadows.
How to Paint Cirrus Clouds
These are feathery clouds very high up in the atmosphere, swept along by high winds. Be light-handed to capture their wispiness. If they’re pure white, consider lifting off the blue of your sky to reveal a white ground rather than painting with an opaque white, trying to leave parts white, or using masking fluid.
Suggested colors include alizarin crimson for pink tints; yellow ocher and cadmium orange for golds.
Watercolor Clouds in Different Blue Paints
When painting clouds using watercolor, the white of the clouds will be the white of the paper. Don’t stress about trying to paint around the shapes of the clouds, but create them by lifting off paint using something absorbent, such as a piece of paper towel or corner of a clean rag. If you find the paint dries before you’ve time to lift off the clouds, try first painting the area with some clean water, so when you apply the blue you’re working wet on wet.
Start by selecting a blue, mixing up more than you think you’ll need, and painting it across the whole area with a broad brush. Don’t fuss overly about getting it a completely even wash as once you start lifting off paint to create the clouds, you’ll have variations in the blue anyway.
The test sheet shown in the photo was painted by Greenhome, who says: “Before embarking on this [painting] journey, I thought a cloud is a cloud is a cloud. Not so anymore. I find myself scrutinizing clouds quite obsessively these days. I did this test sheet with five different kinds of blue (cobalt, Winsor, cerulean, Prussian and ultramarine) and two different cloud lifting tools (scrunched up toilet tissue and a small sea sponge).
As you can see, different blues give the sky quite a different feel. Select a blue that fits the scene and the location. The sky definitely isn’t always the same blue.
Once you’re comfortable with this painting technique, start adding more color into the cloud area for shadows within the clouds. Payne’s grey is excellent for dark rain clouds, but experiment with adding a little dark red to the blue to create a purple-tinged shadow.
