Painting Clouds Step-by-Step

Today, I'm going to show you how to paint a simple but effective sky that you can use with almost any subject that you want to paint. What I love about this is it only takes a couple of minutes to paint, but it creates a beautiful atmospheric effect. And I'm going to go through it with you step-by-step.

The sky we’re going to paint today is not a main feature of the painting. Rather, it portrays the midday feel of blue sky and some clouds in the distance. In this video, I show you what colors I'm using and talk you through the wet-into-wet technique I use to paint the sky. 

Supplies I use to Paint the Sky in Watercolor

Of course, if you don’t have these exact supplies and colors, use what you have and experiment with me anyway. But if you would like to follow exactly, here is what I use to create this midday sky:

• 140 pound, cold press Saunders Waterford paper 
• Natural sponge
• Paint Colors: Lavender, Neutral Tint, Raw Sienna, Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine Blue
• A large mop brush

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First Step to Painting the Midday Sky in Watercolor 

Now, this sky we were going to paint today is going to be a wet-into-wet painting. So I have this natural sponge that I'm going to use and I just simply go over the back of my paper and then I go over the front of my paper.

Don’t worry about preserving any dry parts of the paper. Just go over the whole thing. 

H2 - A Light Grey to Paint Clouds in Watercolor 

With a large mop brush, I want to paint the subtle color of the clouds. 

To create this grey, I like to mix a little bit of Lavender, a little bit of Neutral Tint, and a touch of Raw Sienna. If you don't have all these colors, that's okay. You're just trying to create a light grey color that leans towards warm in a pretty light consistency. 

This is the color of the clouds, so use this to cover a lot of the paper where you want your clouds to be. 

You can just bring that down to wherever your horizon is going to be. Now you’ve established that light value for the clouds. The next step - what I usually do - is to go back in and do this same thing with just a little bit darker pigment, a little bit more value. Again, bring that down to wherever your horizon is going to be.

Now the clouds have little subtle value change. They have a little bit of shadow under them. 

Add Color to Your Sky with Watercolor Paints - Cerulean Blue and Ultramarine Blue

So next, I'm going to use some Cerulean blue and maybe a touch of Ultramarine Blue.

What we're going to do is we are going to negatively paint around our clouds. You can do this over and over again and your clouds will turn out a little different each time. 

One thing that's helpful is to turn your brush and add a variety of brush strokes. You don't want every little mark to look exactly the same. So now you can see we're starting to let some clouds subtly begin to appear on the paper. 

As you get down to the horizon, make these little bands of clouds narrower together. The closer to the horizon they are, the closer they should be. Keep perspective in mind as you paint them.

Now we're just going to add a touch of stronger pigment up near the top of the sky with some more Cerulean. Use a stronger value of what we already have used, and just add a touch of a little more value up here. What that does is give your sky a little more focus. And just like before, try to use a variety of brush strokes. You don't want everything to look exactly the same.

Watercolor Sky as a Background to Your Scene

Now, we have created a wonderful, subtle background of clouds that we can paint our landscapes on, your street scene, or whatever else you have in mind. You can see the subtle value changes, the little suggestions of cloud shapes. And it really creates a nice background for any type of subject that you might want to paint.

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Related Blog Posts:

A Simple Practice for Painting Clouds and Skies

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