Painting Watercolor Skies with Confidence

Watercolor skies are captivating! They are gorgeous to look at, and also incredibly satisfying to create. 

But that doesn’t mean they’re easy to paint.  

This blog and video will provide you with the knowledge you need to paint gorgeous skies that will add intrigue and beauty to your watercolor scenes.  

How to Paint a Watercolor Sky

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5 Watercolor Techniques For Painting Skies

1. Don’t try to replicate a picture of the sky exactly. 

If you attempt to copy a picture of the sky or to replicate a sky on site, you will be disappointed with the outcome, I can almost guarantee it. Instead, think of your reference as inspiration for the kind of sky - the colors, the shapes, the light - you want to depict. Instead of trying to create a carbon copy, focus on capturing an atmosphere.

2. Paint skies wet into wet.

Watercolor is a fantastic medium for painting skies because of the opportunity it presents to let colors merge on wet paper. The soft edges and mix of pigments of wet into wet painting is nothing short of gorgeous.

To achieve this look, wet both sides of your paper with water, using a sponge. Then apply watercolor paint and allow it to mingle on the page. 

3. Vary your brush strokes.

It can be easy to settle into a rhythm while you’re painting and end up using similar brush strokes over and over. When it comes to your sky, try to interrupt your default brush marks. Mix it up a little, adding texture and interest in the sky. 

4. Account for fading as you paint the sky.

 This is something to keep in mind no matter what you’re painting in watercolor, but because a sky requires a wet-into-wet wash, it’s a good reminder. If the values you are putting down on your paper are exactly the hues you want for the final painting, then you need to darken your values. 

Your wash will always look darker when it’s wet, so you have to account for the fading that will occur when it dries. 

5. Practice painting skies often.

As with anything else, practice and repetition really pays off. Sometimes your watercolor scene calls for a simple blue sky, and other times you want the sky to steal the show. 

Honing your sky painting skills with frequent practice increases the tools you have to work with. It will become much easier for you to toggle between painting a simple backdrop for a scene, creating a show stopping sunset, and negatively painting clouds. 

How Do I Avoid Green in My Watercolor Skies?

When you were a kid, you probably learned that when you mix blue with yellow, you get green, right? But what happens when we want both yellow and blue in our skies?

How do we preserve our rich Cobalt and Ultramarine Blues, and still have our bright yellow stand out? 

The key is to use a transition color (like Rose Madder Permanent or Alizarin Crimson) between your cool and warm colors. In the video at the top of the blog, I demonstrate this painting process for you. Check it out if you haven’t already!

Painting a Watercolor Sky: Step by Step

Skies are varied and dynamic, so you’ll never paint the same sky twice. As you follow along with this watercolor tutorial, remember that your sky will look different than mine, and the point is not to replicate the sky exactly, but to capture the essence of it. 

First, I wet down the front and back of my paper. By wetting down both sides, the paper will stay damp longer and I can have more time to work wet into wet. 

Then I apply the light, warm tones in the sky and then add the blue and some of the other darker values.

So I'm going to start out with something really nice, vibrant and warm. I'm going to use a touch of Raw Sienna and Quinacridone Gold. Then I add some Cadmium Orange into the mix.

Next I add some Rose Madder Permanent to avoid my yellows and blues mixing into green on the paper. I go ahead and take this color down to the bottom of the page and also line the top of my yellow so that I can add blue there too without it turning green. 

Then I rinse my brush off and use a mix of Cerulean and Cobalt Blue to add to the top of my sky.

Then I mix some Cerulean and Rose Madder Permanent for a kind of purpley color that I start to transition into down on the bottom of our paper. Notice that I’m negatively painting around my light. 

Then I add Lavender. If you don’t have Lavender, you can mix Ultramarine Blue and Rose Madder Permanent.

With my medium brush - just a little calligraphy brush - I am going to get some more Cadmium Orange and see what that looks like as it mixes with the Lavender. 

Now I'm going to go back to my big brush and we need some thicker pigment here. I mix Lavender, Cobalt Blue, and Neutral Tint for the darker clouds.

Finally, I bring some of this strength down into the lower half of this painting using Lavender and Neutral Tint. 

And here's a look at the sky once it has dried.

What Brushes and Pigments Did I Use When Painting this Watercolor Sky?

For this sky, I used the following watercolor pigments:

• Raw Sienna
• Quinacridone Gold
• Cadmium Orange
• Cerulean
• Rose Madder Permenant
• Ultramarine Blue
• Cobalt Blue
• Neutral Tint
• Lavender

I used the following brushes:

• Large Mop Brush
• Medium Calligraphy Brush

If you would like to purchase some of the brushes I feature in this video, take a look at my Amazon Affiliate link.

Related Blogs

How to Avoid Creating Green in Watercolor Skies - Easy Mixing Formula

Tape-Free Watercolor: Embracing Spontaneity on Paper

Easy Watercolor Clouds - A Tutorial