Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello, everyone. Welcome to
another one of my classes. In this one, I'm
going to be sharing everything I know
about painting clouds. Clouds can be a great way to add a simple background to
your illustrations, or they can be a way
to add a lot of detail and personality to a
painting of landscape. My name's Chrissy and I'm
an artist and illustrator. I love painting scenery
and backgrounds and believe they don't have to
be intimidating to make. I hope to pass on some
techniques I've learned along the way that would
have been great to know sooner in my
own art journey. This class will be most suited to intermediate artists with a basic understanding of a digital art software
like Procreate. Although beginners and
traditional artists will still benefit
from the lessons too. I'll be sharing some of the best procreate brushes
for painting skies and we'll be using some of its features that you might
not have tried yourself yet. When you finish this class, you'll have a finished
painting of a sky full of clouds and the confidence to try painting them in
your own unique pieces. Now, let's get started.
2. Class Project: When you've finished your
project for this class, you'll have a finished
painting of a cloudy sky. This is so you can
come away from class with a chance to
practice what you've learned. To achieve this, you'll be completing the following steps. Paint a high altitude Cloud. A medium altitude cloud and
paint a low altitude cloud. Then finally, you'll pick
your favorite time of day and paint a sky flow
cloud spaced on it. I'll prompt you at the end of each lesson that has a
class project aspect, so don't worry about getting started until you're
feeling ready to. If you'd like a full summary
of the project at any point, it'll be listed in the class
project tab under the video. As always, I'll also
include a link to a Pintrest board full
of reference images. Before starting
the main lessons, it'll be helpful to
have procreate or whatever software you're
using open and ready to go. When you comfy and
ready. Let's begin.
3. High Clouds: To simplify things, we're
going to categorize clouds into three types based on the height
where they're found, high clouds, mid
clouds, and low clouds. When looking up at the sky, you'll often see a mix of
all these different types, so we're going to start from the top and work our way down. This won't necessarily
cover every single type of cloud there is as a lot of
them look quite similar, but it'll give you a
great starting point, even if it's just to
know what to search for when you want to
find a reference image. These are really common clouds that look like wispy
tufts of hair. During the day, they're often whider than any
other type of clod, and when it gets darker, they can take on the
color of the sunset. I. These clouds are made up
of patches of cloudlets. They normally have
soft shading and shadows and they can
appear as white or gray. Something to take
note of from seeing examples of these clouds
is that generally, the higher cloud is
in the atmosphere, the less detailed and
shaded it will look. It will also be more translucent and sunlight will pass
through it easily. Let's have a look now at how
to paint these cloud types. Starting off of
the series clouds, I find the wet acrylic brush to be the most useful
for this type. Before we get
started, let's add in a nice blue gradient
on our background. To make this procreate, drop in a dark blue color. Then pick a lighter
color and add it to the lower half of your canvas
with a large soft brush. To blur, we're going to select the adjustments menu
and Gossiu blur. Make sure to select
layer instead of pencil. Drag your finger horizontally on your screen until you have
a blend that you like. Okay, we can begin by using a large brush size to lightly sketch in the overall
shape of the cloud. When doing this, I found
it easier to brush in the direction of the shy curves that the wind seems
to be pushing it in. Here's an example of some
arrows to show what I mean. I use white as my
color for this. When you're happy
with the rough shape, switch to an eraser, decrease the size,
and use it to shape it even more while still
following the curves. I switch between the brush
and eraser a few times while decreasing the brush size a little bit more every time. Keep going until you're happy
with the level of detail. Sometimes it can be hard
to know when to stop, so I keep quite med
out for all of this. There comes a point
eventually when tiny details don't add anything noticeable to
a painting overall. I need to remind myself
of this sometimes because I find detailing way too fun
and can find it to stop. When you're satisfied
with the shape, decrease the opacity
of the layer to 50% and create a new
layer on top of it. Now you can follow
a similar process with the bright
parts of the cloud. Start with our big brush, then decrease the size, era, and repeat to we're happy. As a final step, we
can add a tiny bit of gossim blur again to help
the clouds look more whispy. For this, I only add
1% to keep it subtle. Okay, let's try out some
cumulus clouds now. For these, I like using
a rainforest brush. Set up your blue gradient
again for the background. Start it off similarly to the Cirrus clouds but with
this new brush instead. So we're sketching out the
rough shape of the clouds, then shaping it by painting and erasing with
smaller brushes. We're also going to
decrease the opacity of this layer to 50% and
create a new one on top. With a smallish brush
on the new layer, we're going to and
tap in the cloudlets. I find that it's helpful to make little tiny swirling
motions as we tap the brush to create
randomness to the shapes. Next, we can move down to a tinier brush to tap in the smaller clouds
until we're happy. I also like to use
a smaller racer of the same type of
brush to detail as well. Since there's more detail
to this type of cloud, it takes a bit longer to paint than the
other cloud types. But I think the
result is pretty fun. Practice painting these
clouds t you're comfortable, and then go ahead and move
on to the next lesson where we'll be talking
about the clouds you find at a medium height. If at any point you
feel a bit stuck, leave me a comment, and I'll
help you out where I can. For your class project,
pick your favorite out of these two clouds and make a
quick painting study of it.
4. Medium Clouds: In the last lesson, we talked
about the higher clouds, so let's move on to
mid height clouds. These are another type of
cloud made up of lots of little cloudlets These
are visually different from the ceralcumulus clouds because they have more
noticeable shading. These are fluffy
gray or blue clouds that spread over a
very large area. These are a thicker version of the previous tal stratus clouds. They're often dark and
gray and featureless. They block out sunlight
and can produce rain. Let's have a look now
at painting these ones. Attalcumulus clouds
are quite similar to paint as the serial cumulus
clouds from the last lesson, we're going to take the
painting from that video and work on top of it with the
rainforest brush again. If you're creating these
clouds from scratch, follow the method
for those clouds from the previous video first. Now we're going to select a bluey gray shade and add
some shadows and shading. Keep in mind the direction
the light is coming from and add these to the opposite
sides of the cloudlets. Don't worry about
adding shadows to every single cloudlet as
some of still be all white. It saves time and makes things look a little bit
more realistic. Generally, I add my shadows to the whiter bright
clouds as they look more opaque and three D than the thinner wispy clouds. So they'll cast more shadows. As before, we can
also go in with an e raser to help us with
shaping things more nicely. You can also make little
adjustments by lowering the opacity of the layer to see if you prefer
how that looks. In this case, I
lowered mine to 90%. If you want, you can also
use a soft brush to lightly erase the lower shadows that
are in the brighter part of the sky. Okay. Time for altostratus clouds. As these are relatively
featureless, it's great news for us as it
makes them quick to paint. We're going to be
trying out a new brush for these ones
called wet sponge. If your blue gradient made, create a new layer and
select white as your color. Now we're going to make the wet sponge brush as large as we can, and then lightly swirl our brush around the canvas
and one stroke. If you want to make it lighter, lift your brush, then swirl
again on top of that. It can be helpful to decrease the brush size a little too. That's it. Nice and simple. Nimble stratus clouds are very like the to stratus clouds. To make those, we're going to draw on top of what
we made for them. Select a medium blue gray and
decrease your brush size a. Still with a wet sponge, swirl your brush over the clouds on a new layer while keeping a little bit of
the original white visible for shading and depth. Oh. Switch to an eraser to pick more of the white
back out, and that's it. When you feel ready, go
ahead and move on to the next lesson where we'll cover the final types of clouds. For the class project
part of this lesson, pick your favorite
cloud type again from this video and
paint a study of it.
5. Low Clouds: Now that we've gone over the
top two layers of clouds, let's look at the lower ones. These are really
common fluffy clouds. They're detached
and individual with bright white tops and
relatively dark bases. The furer away they are, the more they blend
into the sky color. These are similar
to cumulus clouds, but they're a lot more condensed
and attached together. They're some of the most
common clouds you'll see, and they can be anywhere from
bright white to dark gray. They've got well
defined flat bases with some parts
darker than others. This cloud type
is pretty simple. It's just a features foggy
blanket of white or gray. Finally, we've got my personal
favorite type of cloud. These are really tall clouds that get wider towards the top. Their base is flat and dark and they have
a lot of texture. These clouds are associated with extreme weather and can produce thunder
lightning and hail. Now that we've talked about
all these cloud types, let's paint these final ones. For cumulus clouds, since they're thicker and
closer to us in the sky, it's best to think of these
clouds like three D shapes. They're normally flat
and dark on the bottom, so it's helpful to think
of their basic shape like half a sphere with flat bit
being the bit in shadow. Here's a few drawn
at different angles to give an idea of what I mean. If you're looking at
it from far away, you're going to see at the base, but if it's nearly over your head, you're going
to see more of it. Start with the wet sponge
brush and white to swirl in the shape while
keeping a flat base in mind. Lift and swirl your
brush again to add the wider parts where
the sun is hitting it. Try to keep it looking
nice and soft. If you want to have
more crisp edges, you can go in with small
eraser to refine them. Now, we can create a new layer and set it to clipping mask over our white layer with a blue gray color in the
lower part of the cloud. Now you can get a
medium sized eraser to shake this until you like it. If you want it to
look less dramatic, you can decrease the opacity of this new layer until
you like the look. Okay. Let's try out
Stradlecmulus clouds now. These are similar
to cumulus clouds but more pumped and detailed, so we're going to start with the same method of adding
in the white silhouettes. This time, though,
we're going to make them look more lumpy than soft. We're also going
to create them in two or three layers to help
us with making them detailed. For the first layer,
we're going to make the lower layer of the clouds
using the wet sponge brush. Keep in mind if you
want the sunlight to be coming from the left,
right, or above. Let's create a new
layer and repeat this. If it helps, you can turn off the previous layer so you can see where you're
adding the new clouds. Do this as many times as you like until you like the result. If you want any inspiration
for the shapes of the clouds, looking at lots of reference
images is really helpful. To each of these,
we're going to add a clipping there
and add shadows. Like me, you might find it easier to start with the
shading on the top clouds. When you shade the
bottom clouds, keep in mind the shadows the
top ones can cast on them. If you want to soften
up some edges, you can use a large soft brush. Finally, if you want
to add more detail, you can switch to
a rainforest brush to add in some clouds too. This is a cloud
type that you can really experiment with
and have fun with. So do what makes you happy. Okay, let's jump into
stratus clouds now. Compared to the
stratocumulus ones, these are super quick and easy. We're just going to take a
wet sponge brush and cover the sky in a light gray that gets darker
towards the bottom. If you want, you can
change the color of your brush to a darker shade
to make this a stronger. Finally, it's time for
cumulon mbus clouds. These are a really good one
to finish with as we can practice all the techniques
we've used so far on them. For this one, I'm going to start with a wet sponge
brush in white, making sure to give it the distinctive wider
part at the top. I'm going to shape it until I'm ready to add a little
bit of shading. With the bluish gray, I'm
going to add in some shadows. I want my light to be coming
from the left in this, so I'll place the
shadows on the right. These clouds have a real
mix of hard and soft edges, so to add more hard edges. I'm going to use the
rainforest brush. I'm going to add in
more light areas and a few little cloudlets. A. Feel free to add as
much as you like to your version and
get really creative. If you like, you
can also go into the adjustments menu to
play a round of the curves. Personally, I like to
pull the left side down and the right
side up like this. Procreate doesn't currently have the option to adjust
contrasts like photoshop, so this is the next thing. If you've made it
this far, well done because you've just made
it through all the clouds, I'm going to be
covering in this class. If you're following along
with the class project, now's the time to
pick your favorite from this video to
paint a study of. In the next video,
we're going to be covering some of
the more fun stuff. So if you want to paint vibrant sunsets and
things like that, then go ahead and move
on to the next lesson.
6. Times of Day: So far, we've been
looking at how clouds look in normal daylight
against a blue sky. But of course, the
sky can be really colorful instead of just
white and blue shades. Here's some examples of the mixes of colors you
can get in the sky. A super simple version of what's happening is to do with
particles in the air. The shorter
wavelengths of light, such as blues and purples, bounce more easily off these particles in directions
away from your eyes. During the afternoon, when
the sun is high in the sky, the light doesn't have to pass
through as many particles. So overall, the sky looks blue since less of the blue
wave lengths are lost. When the sun's low in
the sky and setting, the light has more of the
atmosphere that pass through, so more of the blue
light is lost and the sky looks more
orange as a result. Now that we've outlined
what's causing this, let's see what we
can do the paint it. The first thing we're
always going to start with is the sky gradient. For the blue skies, we
just use two colors, but for sunsets, you can
use more if you like. The next, we're going to want to pick our light color
for the cloud. As the sunlight is directly
hitting this side, it's going to take on the
color of that light source. In this example, it's going
to be a light yellow. I color pick the
lightest color in the sky gradient and
adjust it to get this. The shadow side color
is going to be more affected by the ambient
color of the sky around it, so here it will be
tinged with blue. This time, I color picked the darkest color in my
sky gradient to adjust. Now that you have your
main colors down, add detail by color picking
them off your canvas. I used a rainforest brush
and soft brush for this, and here's what I ended up with. Let's look at another
type of sky color now. In this example, we're going
to try a more dramatic sky. The light color is going to be a shade of more
saturated orange. Before we just lightened the color we got from
the sky gradient, but by adding more saturation, it looks more dynamic. The shadow side is going to be a slightly darker purple
as it's taking you on the color of a little bit of the sunlight and more
of the sky color. After detailing this one,
here's how it turned out. For one final example, we'll quickly look
at one more sky two. So after adding our gradient, we'll use a pink for the light and a purply blue
for the shadows. A A Here's the finished
result of this one. There's countless possibilities
for sky and cloud colors. So if you're in doubt, find a reference image that you like and copy the
colors from it. Great. That's all the main
points covered in this class. If there's any questions
you still have left, let me know in the discussions
tab under the video. Hopefully, you're now feeling more confident in this topic. The one simple thing we
have to remember is that the cloud colors are affected by the environment around them. In the next lesson
is a Little bonus, we're going to talk about some
fun extra details you can add to your paintings to give
them more personality. I.
7. Extra Details: Before we put everything
we've learned together, let's talk a little bit
about some extra details. We could add to our skies
to spice things up. Sometimes the sky can look fine to you without
anything extra, but sometimes it might just feel like something is missing. There's so many possibilities, but here's a few little ones to help spark an idea for you. For an easy moon, use the round brush to
add a white circle. Tap and hold the eraser and use it to cut out the
center to make a crescent. You can leave it like
this or decrease the opacity of the layer
to blend it in with that, M. There's a trick you can use to make
stars really quickly. Pick a brush you like and swipe left on it to have the
option to duplicate it. Now, tap on it and drag spacing
all the way to the right. Then drag Jitter all the
way to the right too. For mine, I use
the mon al brush. Now you can scribble in the sky full of stars really quickly. For more depth, use a large soft brush to gently erase to make the edges fainter. S. To make condensation
trails from a plane, use a wet sponge brush. Draw where you want
the line to begin to where you want it to end
and hold it for a second. Procreate will
straighten this for you. Decrease the opacity of this, and then you can
use it as a guide to add details on new layer. As these trails get further
away from the plane, they spread out more and become more fluffy and cloud like. The Odion brush is a great
brush to use for this, although it can be a
little bit tricky. One thing to make
sure before you start is that both the colors in your color selection are set to the one you want as
it's affected by both. It's also very affected by the pressure and angle you use. I find a light pressure
works the best for me. Draw a sweeping line
in the shape you want. Next, use the blending tools, set to your soft brush, and smudge out the harsh
lines at the edges. Take the same blending
brush and flick it upwards across your shape
until you like how it looks. Oh. Oh. As a finishing touch to mine, I also added in some extra
glow with a big soft brush. Sometimes it can be
nice to add something into the foreground
of a sunset painting. This will be in shadow,
but it won't be pure black as it's going to take on the colors of the
sky a little bit. Here I'm going to use
a warm brown color. The flat brush can be great for this to quickly
brock into shapes, I'm going to add some hills, a tree, and a fence to this one. In the next two lessons, I'm going to share a full
painting demonstration of how to use all these techniques
to make a sky painting.
8. Demonstration: Afternoon: We should have an
understanding now from the previous lessons of what
goes into painting clouds. So it's time to put
it all together. In this example, I'm
going to show you how I paint a blue
afternoon sky. When I'm doing a full
painting like this, I like to start
in the foreground or with the low clouds
and work my way up. This saves you from spending
time painting a lot of details in the background
just to have them covered up. I start off with a
wet sponge brush to add in some fluffy clouds. Sometimes I'll flip
the layers on and off to better see where
I'm adding my details. Next, I add in some
ser cumulus cloudlets with the rainforest brush. I also do a bit of erasing
to shape things I want. In another layer, I add some blue gray shading and adjust the opacity
to blend it in. Occasionally, I'll also go
into the adjustments menu to play around with the
Huan saturation sliders. For the rest of the
cloud detailing, I'll just color pick what's
there on the canvas and drop in some extra details wherever I feel
like it needs it. For some extra interest, I decided to go in and add a grassy field in
the foreground. I used a mixture
of a flat brush, a Nico roll brush, and the dry ink brush. I used the flat brush for
blocking in the main shapes, the Nico roll for adding
textures and shadows and the dry ink for fine
details like grass strands. To make the colors
work against the sky, pick the green on your color
wheel that's a bit closer to the blue shades and don't
make it too saturated. It's going to be affected by
the blue light of the sky, so this will make it look a
little bit more realistic. You can see I was quite indecisive about
what else to add. So I just went for my
favorite fallback. I'm stuck, which
is just a fence. A. M.
9. Demonstration: Sunset: We're nearly at the end. Now, I hope you've learned
some fun new things. In this last lesson, I'll demonstrate one way
that I paint a sunset. For the sky color in this, I'm going to place a yellow at the bottom that fades
up into a blue. Remember to use gaussian blur to get a nice smooth transition. This time, I'm going to start the clouds with
their shadow color. As there's blues in the sky and a warm orange light source, they're going to be a
dark shade of purple. I'm using the rainforest
brush for most of this. Then I'm going to add in
a saturated orange color where the light is
hitting the clouds. The light colors and sunsets are harsher than the light
in normal daylight, so this is good to keep in mind when you're
picking colors. For more depth, I go in with a wet acrylic brush to
add some cerus clouds. These are done with the same methods from
the earlier tutorial, but with a slightly
yellower shade of white. From here, I'm mostly just color
picking the colors that are already there and adding
in the finer detos. You can also see
that I'm adjusting the human saturation
sliders quite often. I think in this
case, it's totally fine to be a bit in
decisive because it can lead to you accidentally
finding a cool color scheme, happy accidents. Oh. I also decided that I wanted to add a little scene
under the sky, so I went in with a very dark flat brush to add
some hills in the distance. I copied the cloud
layer and flipped at 180 degrees to act as a glassy
reflection in the lake. Oh. With a large soft brush, I added some lighting
with a light orange on a separate overlay layer. Then to finish it off, I
went around the piece with a soft brush and a dry ink brush to add in the final
finishing touches. A Oh.
10. Closing Thoughts: Well done, if you've
made it here to the end. Here's a little recap
of the main points. The sky is a gradient of color that gets lighter
towards the horizon. The higher a cloud is in the
sky, the less detail it has. Clouds take on the color
from their light source. Shadows take their color
from the dark sky color. If you followed along
with the class project, please feel welcome
to share it below. It'll be great to see
what you've created. If you'd also like to be
notified of my future classes, you can follow me
here on Sco share or in the following places. All right. That's us. Thanks for taking my class. I hope
you had a lot of fun. If you enjoyed this class, I also currently have two others released about drawing birds,
which you can check out. You'll find them
linked down below. Bye for now, everyone.