OIL PAINTING TUTORIAL: MOODY CLOUDSCAPE

1. Introduction: Hey everyone, My name is Sam McAndrew and I'm a Canadian realist painter. Today I'll be walking you through a beautiful landscape painting. Clouds are one of my favorite things to paint, and I'm so excited to teach you all of these techniques so the YouTube can create a beautiful cloudy seen anytime you like, the materials that we'll be using for this class, or a 24 inch by 30 inch canvas. Now you can scale yours up in size or genocides to whatever you're comfortable with. For all my classes, you'll see me using Liquid Light gel asthma begin. It speeds up the drying time of painting. Now you do not need to use this medium if you'd like to participate in this class, you can use linseed oil or walnut oil or whatever you have on hand. So the colors I'll be using for this class, or Van Dyke brown, green earth, a circle gray, indigo, Prussian blue, civilian blue, and titanium white. Now you do not need to use all those colors at all. In fact, you can substitute any of those of what you have on hand. Your painting will look a little different, but it will achieve the same effects with the techniques that I teach you. With that being said, I'm really excited to dive into this class with you. So let's get started. 2. Part 1: Layout and Base Layer: So I've laid out my palette with the seven colors we talked about earlier. I had green earth, Van Dyke brown, charcoal gray, indigo blue, Prussian blue, civilian blue. And over here I have my titanium white and my Liquid Light job. We're going to be following the rule of thirds as we lay out our painting, our focal points can arrest right here on the horizon line where clouds are really going to come together and really make it pop off the canvas. Now if you're not familiar with the rule of thirds, I go over all this in great detail in my earlier classes, so be sure to check those out. We're going to be starting by blocking in the dark sections of the painting first, as we build up all the layers will be using lighter and lighter colors to make it really three-dimensional. So we're going to start by blocking in the top section here with that beautiful deep blue as well as a longer horizon line, we're going to be blocking a nice dark section that we can build our clouds on top of. So this is a 24-inch by 30 inch canvas and I've come up about six inches to establish my horizon line. You might have to play with this a little bit depending on what size of Canvas you're working with. But you want to come up about this much from the bottom. It's going to be a really beautiful with the composition of this piece. We're going to start by blocking in the dark section up here on the top, and then building up our Skyline along our horizon will also transfer some of that color down into our water here. Because it's really nice to have a really cohesive feel to the painting as you're working along. So you're gonna start by grabbing a little bit of medium and working in into the bristles on your brush. Now, as mentioned before, I'm using liquid late Joe. You can use any medium that you have on hand that you're comfortable working with. You do not want too much medium on your bristles. If you put too much on at the beginning, your layers are really going to thin out and really be hard to define as we work through this painting. Wet on wet, wet on wet means we're going to do it all in one sitting. You can take your time and stop at any point and wait for your painting to fully dry, no problem at all. But for this class I'm gonna be showing you all in one go exactly how I create this beautiful cloud scene. So again, not too much medium on your bristles. And then we're going to start picking up the blue that we're going to use on the top section of the painting. So I'm gonna go ahead and grab some of my indigo blue. And I'm going to mix in a fair quantity of my Prussian blue into that. I really want this blue to pop. And I'm gonna add a little bit of Titanium white. It's a beautiful deep blue. And you do not want too much of it on your bristles. If you get too much of it on your paintbrush, It's really going to be hard to put the white clouds up over top actors. So make sure it's a nice, thin even mount on your brush. Now, as mentioned in my other classes, you're also going to want to add a little bit all the other colors we're going to be using down in the bottom of our painting because they all reflect off one another in the natural world. So make sure you add just a little bit of your Van Dyke brown, a little bit of your pressure green, your charcoal gray, and mix it in. You do not need a lot. It's just a really subtle amount. So coming up to this top section of the Canvas, we're just going to block in this one little area. You do not want a lot of paint here. You really want to make sure it's a nice thin layer. So if you're feeling like you might have a little bit too much on your brush, grab a rag and wipe some of it off. This is a very thin layer. So be sure to only have a little bit on your brush. I'm just going to be working my brush down on this section with a medium amount of pressure in circular motions. I'm just going to pull my brush across the top of this canvas back and forth. I don't want to go below about this area, so I'm just going to paint this whole section in and stop six to eight inches down from the top of my canvas. This is a very strong blue. And if you put too much of it on in too great of an area, it's really going to transfer into all the other colors we put up here, especially our whites. So Finland don't come too far down. We just want to establish one little pocket of blue sky coming up on the top-left corner there, painting here. Alright, so we have a nice section of blue up here. We also have that beautiful blue all over this brush. And we want to transfer some of that blue down here. What I wanna do is add a few more colors to this to really differentiate it between the top and the bottom, I want a little bit more brown and a little bit more green, some charcoal gray in this section. To really intensify this area. Our focal points are going to be down around this section. And with those bright beautiful colors down here, it's really going to force the eye into this area and really create a beautiful composition for the painting. So grabbing some Van Dyke brown, mixing it in the same area that we were just using to block in the top section some of your green earth or whatever green you have on hand. Little bit more Prussian blue and some more indigo. I'm just creating a really beautiful dark deep color. And what we're gonna do is from this side of your Canvas, pull your brush along your horizon line that you established. If you lose your horizon line on this, do not worry, you can re-establish it really easily just by taking your measurement and using a straight edge to pull your line across again. I'm just going to transfer some of that dark color off my brush into this horizon area. You don't want to come up too much. Again, we're going to be building up clouds on top of this. We're just going to add a little bit to this area and give her eyes something to focus on as we build the clouds on top of it. This is very dark. What you're going to want to do after this, grabbing a little Titanium on your brush and mix it into that color on your palette. Do not add too much medium to your painting from this point on. The more media we add, the more hard it is to differentiate between the different shapes and channels within our Cloud because it's all going to be very thin paint. You want a nice, thicker consistency to your paint as we build up these clouds. So now that I have this beautiful deep dark color here, I'm going to use that titanium white. I'm going to transfer a little bit of it into this area. I just want to soften up that dark blue too much, but enough that it allows a little bit more light to shine in this background. This is going to create a really cool effect when we start building our clouds. I can't wait for you to see it. So grabbing some cerulean blue, some Van Dyke brown and some charcoal gray, mix it onto the blue that's already on your palette. What we're going to be doing is we're actually going to be creating another blocking in color. And this color is actually going to go in the middle section of our painting and we're going to push it into the background here. What this is gonna do is it's going to allow us to build clouds with our highlights really easily. Make sure you have a fair amount of your charcoal gray or whatever color you are substituting that in width. And right in the middle. With a minimal amount of pressure on your brush, you just want to transfer some of that color up into this middle section, I'm adding a little bit more charcoal gray because I have a lot of blue on my brush. Just pay attention to what is on your brush as you're working in different sections. If you have a lot of blue, add a little bit more of the other color working with just to balance that out. This looks really dark right now, but we're actually going to be pushing it into different sections of the canvas or the blending brush very soon, we're just establishing where we want our dark shadows to be. So we also want to transfer this color down into the water. It's going to really create a really pleasing image for the eye. It's going to look for the balanced. So in the same shape, you apply it up here. You also want to do the opposite, the mirror reflection down in the water. It does not have to be perfect, just a rough idea. It's just really going to help build a really beautiful balance to this section. Whenever we go to do our detail work. Transfer some of that blue into this water here and then we'll just leave that for now. We'll finish blocking that in after we get some more up here in our Clouds. So I have a lot of brushes and I'll be using fresh brushes for all the different sections this painting, if you only have one or two brushes, that is no problem. Just grab a rag and wipe off all the excess paint that you can. It'll be totally fine to keep using that brush throat every section. Just make sure you get all that excess paint off. I'm going to be grabbing a fresh brush. What I wanna do is I'm just going to block in the shadows of these clouds that are gonna be down in the foreground along our horizon line. So with this color, I do not want to use too much of my Prussian blue. I really want this to be a dark color. So I'm going to use my indigo, charcoal gray, Van Dyke brown, and my green earth. Now I lied, we're going to use a little bit of the Prussian blue, but not too much. It's going to create a really rich, deep color. And it's different than anything we have on the canvas. So it's really going to create really nice contrast in these areas. So we're going to be putting the shadows of all the clouds along the base here. So I'm just pulling my brush to the midway point. I'm just transferring some of that color onto the canvas. We're just going to leave that there for now. We're going to be using a lighter color to really make these colors stand out and create different shapes with our clouds. We're just establishing where you want the base of our clouds to be. On this side, I'm going to have a little bit more indigo blue, little bit more charcoal, a little bit more brown. I wanted to be just a little different than this side here. We're just putting a line along the transition area here between the blank canvas and what we've already blocked in using that same brush because we really want the color that's already on it. Grab some titanium white and mix it around just a little bit. You do not need too much paint on your brush. Just enough to create a nice lighter color on your brush there. Right above our shadow line, I'm going to show you how easy it is to start building a little bit of dimension to your piece was circular motions. I'm transferring some of that lighter color onto the canvas and leaving probably about an inch of the dark color showing. Now this is just to establish a rough shape. This is not the detail work. What we're doing is we're just giving me i something to work off as we build our focal point and as we allow the whole canvas to come together with our roughing in over on this side and add a little bit more titanium white. I got a little bit. It's really in blue to that, to a very subtle addition to this color mix, but it does make a little bit of a difference. What I'm doing is I'm just going to transfer some of that color right above the shadow line that we just established. I have very minimal amount of pressure on my brush. I'm using a circular motion. And that's circular motion. As I go across, it's pulling some of that darker color up into this lighter color that's on my brush. And really starting to blend these layers together. This is just a rough in work, so you do not need to look perfect. We're just going to establish some of these layers so that we can really build off of this piece. 3. Part 2: Blocking in the Shadows: Okay, I'm grabbing a fresh brush, clean off whatever brush you have. If you only have a few. What I'm gonna do is I'm Mr. pushing this up into this area of the canvas year. What that's gonna do, it's going to allow this color to be established in this area so that when we bring highlights of other clouds down, they can sit on top of it in a really begins to pop off the Canvas. So I'm going to grab a tiny bit of medium, not too much, and some titanium white on this brush. Right above this section that we blocked in with a lot of pressure on your brush. Transfer some of that white paint in a circular motion right above it. Then slowly move your brush down inch by inch and start pulling that color. In this kind of an arc up and down across your canvas here. What we're doing is spreading this out. And by using this kind of movement with our brush, you're also creating movement with our clouds. And if you were just to put your brush in a straight line across the canvas all the time, it's going to look really flat and uneventful. Right now we want to create some movement. So by pulling this color up really gently and then back down and pulling this side up. And then coming back down. We're transferring minimal amounts of color into these areas. But we're also creating a shape that's also going to pull the eye down to our focal point. Work this area and just keep blending that color in. You should not have a lot of paint on your canvas in a section should be very thin. In fact, if you do have a lot of paint, feel free to grab a paper towel and wipe a little bit of it off. And then keep blending it just like we're doing. This thin layer is going to be really essential to building up the shadows in our clouds and really make this area pop as we get our lighter colors in. As you can see, there's a really beautiful transition created with this blending process. And what this is allowing us to do is really create cool layers as we move ahead. But we're gonna keep focusing on this base there for a little bit longer. Over here, I still want a little bit more of this color to pop through. I don't want to fill this whole section. I just want to have a hint of it. In this little area here. I added just a little bit more of that color that was on our palette that we use to create the shadows in here. And I'm just gently in a circular motion with meaning amount of pressure on my brush, transferring some of that color in this area. I'm also going to add a little bit more Van Dyke brown, a little bit more charcoal gray on my brush. And I'm going to blend it into a different area of my palette just so it becomes a little bit more pronounced on my brush and doesn't become too blue like all the other areas. What I wanna do is create a different shadow color in this section just to be able to play off with as we move up through these layers, I'm transferring with a very minimal amount of pressure. A little bit of this gray and brown colored, It's nice and warm into this side of the painting. By doing this, we're just creating another aspect to this piece. They'll be really pleasing for the eye. It's not all just going to be blue and white. It's going to have really cool contrast and depth to this painting. So I'm just transferring a little bit of this paint in this area. As you can see, I'm still moving my brush up and down in the directions I want these clouds to sit and form. It's very important that you get used to blending in different directions. Don't just go back and forth or up and down, really allow yourself to explore what kind of movement you create with your brush. I have a really minimal amount of pressure on my brush, but this color is now really sinking into the background of this piece already. And it's going to be really wonderful when I start adding my lighter colors. I really liked this gray color. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to add a little bit more of it up here. I haven't added anything to my brush. I'm just going to transfer a little bit. This whole section up here is going to be very light. So you do not want a lot of paint up here, nor do you want a really dark color. By using the color that's already on your brush. You're establishing shadows that we can really push back if they're too pronounced. But in order to do that, you can't have a lot of paint up here. So just circular motions transfer some of that nice warm gray brown color. It still hasn't been of that blue. But not too much. As you work up towards this area of void, pushing your brush into this blue at all costs for now. The reason I see this is a very strong, powerful blue. And if it gets on your brush and you pull it down too soon, It's really going to be hard to push it back and lighten it up. So just avoid that section for now, and I'll show you how we're going to handle the clouds when we get up there. Like how all these colors are starting to come together in our base here. And I'm really excited to show you how we build up the highlights to really make these areas pop and really play off one another and draw the eye into this area on our horizon. Right now I want to push a little bit more shadows into this area. And so I'm going to take the color that we've been working with. And if you've run into that color on your palette, Let's go over it again. So I'm going to grab some of my Prussian blue. My indigo blue circle, gray Van Dyke brown, and my green earth. The reason why I'm adding green earth to this is because I really want a really beautiful ocean color along here and adding green to it really makes it pop. So by having a green in our ocean on our shoreline here, we also need to have some of it up in our clouds. It just going to create cohesion to the piece and really work with the eye and really look realistic when we're done. Since we have this coloring or brush, I'm going to add another line just to a horizon and pull it down into our water a little bit more. Is we're going to be playing with that and the different colors on our palette in this area. But I just want to make it a little bit darker right now, so that's great. And it also take some of that excess paint off my brush. So I want to come up to this section. There's not so much paint and I can create a really nice thin layer of shadows back here with this color. We're also going to start circular motion. Very gentle amount of pressure on your brush. You don't want to transfer too much paint into this area. But what I'm doing is I'm just gently walking my brush across the transition line between this little cloud area we built and the white canvas behind. This is going to be the shadow of the next layer of clouds. And I just want to establish it. It does not need to be perfect. I just want it to fill up that whitespace with a very thin layer of paint and pull it out into this area of it. One thing you can do as we're playing around these base layers is figuring out how to make these shadows really pop off the canvas. We want some of our clouds to sit in this area, and we want them all to run parallel to our horizon line because it's just going to really draw the eye in and really look cool when we're done. So one thing you can do is as you're blending, is just pull your brush across and lift it off the cameras. And what that's gonna do is just concrete a shape that you can build off with your highlights. By creating these shapes with your brush. You're allowing different cloud layers to start forming in our base layer. It's gonna be really fun to build them up as we continue on grabbing some more of that dark color, I'm gonna come over here and I want to add another section to this area that's a little darker. I want to be able to establish some more layers of clouds ever so slightly. Make sure you out a little bit more of your Van Dyke brown and charcoal gray to the side. Just to differentiate these two areas a little bit. It's a very subtle change, but it really makes a difference when you finish your painting. So I have barely any pressure on my brush. I'm just transferring some of this dark color into these areas. And I'm just guessing as to where I want my clouds to sit. And so I'm adding shadows behind where I want a Cloud to sit on this piece. You can play around with this and just exploring it does not lead to look exactly like what I'm doing. I'm just having fun experimenting with this color that's on our brush. Let's also put some down here in the shoreline. Just transfer it onto this area. By pushing really hard on your brush. You do not need to add any medium. The harder you push, the more paint will come off your brush. I just really like this color because it really compliments our Cloud area up here. So after you finished blocking in this area with the color that's already on your brush. Once you to go ahead and pick up a little bit of cerulean blue using the same brush, a little bit of cerulean blue, and a tiny bit of your Prussian blue or whatever blue you're using and mix them in and a little bit of charcoal, gray and brown and green. We really want this section to be a little bit more earthy and our colors, so I'm going to add a little bit of Titanium white. Actually, mine's a little too dark and we're just going to transfer our color into this area. We're going to be playing around with this whole section. As we work into our detailer for right now, we're just lock it in just to give our eyes something to play off of as we build up our clouds. Now this base layer clouds is sitting really high above our horizon line. What I wanna do is I wanna establish another layer of clouds to play with underneath. Now this is a one-inch brush. You can use any brush you have on hand doesn't need to be this big. Now it's the white tack loan. It's got a nice give to it and it's very soft bristles. You don't want really rough hog hair because you're going to see all your lines going make it really hard to blend. For this dark colored shadow. I'm grabbing a little bit of Prussian blue, little bit of indigo, charcoal gray, Van Dyke brown, and green earth. I'm not going to add any medium to my brush because I already have some in this layer down here and I don't want it to become too thin. I'm just going to pull this color. It looks like there's a little bit too much green in brown in there, but that's okay. We're going to pull this color across and transfer some of the color into this area. When we add white to this section and create highlights, you're going to really see how cool of an effect all this has an establishing a really moody scene. So I'm going to use that same dark color. Just jiggling my brush around a little bit, I'm transferring some of that paint onto the canvas in this area. Again, I just want to create a little bit more of a lower cloud base. So that it can really play off our horizon line whenever everything is established for final detail work. You do not need a lot of paint here. I'm just really roughly transferring what's on my brush into this area. I like how everything is starting to come together with our shadows and our base work. What I wanna do is lighten up this section a little bit. I feel like it's a little too dark. We still want it nice and powerful blew up here, but we want to just become a little bit lighter. So grabbing a little bit of Titanium White on your brush in a tiny bit of medium just because you want it to blend really easily at the bottom of your transmission line between the white and this beautiful blue. With a lot of pressure on your brush. Just soften that transition a little bit. By doing this little transition, I'm you're seeing what kind of blue you've put down. Now it's a really beautiful blue. I like how deep it is, but I think I want to warm it up a little bit and to do that and add a little bit more Prussian blue and a little bit of my Van Dyke brown. And what I'm gonna do with that same brush, I'm just gonna come up in this area, the circular motions. I'm just going to transfer that color on my brush and blend it all into this area. It is a very subtle change, but what I don't want is this section to be darker than my cloud-based down here. If I have a super dark section up here, the eye is going to be drawn to this area and we've just messed up our focal point completely. We really want that guy to come down here. So by lighten this up a bit, we are honoring that focal point that we decided upon and making it pop a little bit more. So I just add a little bit more of that Prussian blue and titanium white. They're going to blend in really well with this darker color. And I think it's really going to balance everything out in this base layer for me. Yeah, That's looking a lot nicer. Now we change this blue ever so slightly, but it's still a change. And we haven't on our brush here to create balance in a really nice cohesion, you really want to transfer some of that blue into the different areas. What that's doing is just going to allow the eye to really find a flow within the painting. So with just a subtle amount of pressure, very little. Let's just add a little hint of it in various shadow sections just along the transmission lines. And I think I'll just, with a pretty large amount of pressure on my brush, I'm gonna transfer some down here into this horizon area. By having the same blue in these two sections are just creating a really beautiful balance. So I'm going to grab another one of my smaller brushes and I'm just going to play around with the shadow work on this base layer down here, right above our horizon line. I want to just establish a few extra little clouds. Now I want to make sure that there's a nice blue to these ones. So I'm making sure there's some Prussian blue that's really present in this darker color I'm putting here. You don't need a lot of it. You can mix it in with a darker color that's already on your palate, but you just want to add a little bit extra blue down here, because these clouds are going to be really fun to play with with our lighter color. And by having that blue, it's really going to make it pop when we start adding white. So I'm just adding a few lines straight across. We're going to be adding our highlights and blending these in and really making them look like clouds soon. But for now, I'm just adding a couple more sections of shadow that we'll be able to play with as we move on in our layers. Something that's really going to make these clouds pop as we work through this area, which is our focal point, is creating a layer of mist or rain that's falling from our base layer clouds here. It's going to bring it down to the horizon and we can really put more clouds on top of it to really make it look three-dimensional. It's a really cool effect. So what I'm doing is I'm just going to grab a little bit of Prussian blue, indigo and my charcoal gray. Mix them on a section of my palette here. I don't eat too much with a circular motion. I'm just going to pull my brush along the horizon line and back. By using a circular motion you're blending and all the colors that are there already. But it's really softening it up. You'll see any lines or any harsh contrast is it's all one color. But because we had a darker color on the horizon and in our clouds, it looks like the middle section is a little lighter and that's where I'm gonna get you a really cool effect when we start doing other clouds on top of it. I'm just going to transfer a little bit more of that shadow color back into these areas. Not too much. Making sure not to add too much more blue in our shadow color. So it's going to be a lot more charcoal gray and brown and indigo over here. Just going to pull them back down over top of that layer we just established. Now you can see that it's a really beautiful color in the background here. And we can still have our shadows to play with as we add our lighter colors. 4. Part 3: Building Depth and Layers: All right, We've talked in all the darker colors that we're going to need for now, I really want to move on to establishing some of the highlights and bringing some of the lighter colors down into these layers that we blocked out. Grabbing some titanium white on a fresh brush or cleaning off when you already have and adding some white, adding a little bit of medium to that brush, but not very much. We're going to start translating this paint into the white areas of the canvas that are still showing. I have a lot of pressure on my brush. I'm not going to push the white into the different colors yet. I'm just going to fill in those pockets of blank canvas that are still showing through. Again, I'm going to stay away from this blue if I can. I really don't on my brush right now or in the areas that I'm blocking it with this light pink. Grab a little bit of more titanium white, and just push a little bit of that white onto these sections that have no paint on them yet. Now as you blocked it all in, we're going to go back and start blending some of the shadows into this layer of weight that we put down. If a lot of pressure on your brush with that same movement of back and forth and slightly up, it down, bring it back up this direction. We're creating a shadow around the edge of a huge cloud that's going to be sitting up here. This is kind of our background clouds. It has really subtle shadows, so you don't have to be too dark. By going back and forth over and over again with a light amount of pressure on your brush. You're really making this base cloud look realistic. You do not need a lot of detail work. You just need really subtle blending with a shadow that's really light moving up into the brighter section of the cloud. There's just a little bit of that shadow color on my brush. It's very subtle and very light. So I'm just going to walk it around the entire edge. Careful to go up into that blue just yet transfer It's just a little bit into that area. I haven't added any pizza. My brush, I'm just going to use the paint that we just locked into, pull into different sections of this canvas with a lot of pressure on regression circular motion. I'm just going to pull this layer clouds over into this section. Now I'm going to push more shadow work in and out with my other brush in a little bit. I just want to start getting a feel for how these clowns are going to sit in this top seeing right now. Whenever you're working at translation line from this point forward, you want a gentle amount of pressure on your brush. The harder you push, the more of the color that's on your brush will transfer into that section by using a light amount of pressure, only a bit of the color on your brush be pushed into that transition area, and that's what you want, that's where you're going to start creating really realistic looking clouds. So with a light amount of pressure on my brush, I'm going to work this down in a circular motion and blend this transition. One thing you should know as we're working through this painting is I'm creating this as we go. This is all just play. I don't really have a full idea as to how it's going to look. By not having a fixed end point in mind. I'm allowing myself the freedom to play as we work through these different layers. I don't have to feel as though I have to do something a certain way. I can just go with how it feels in the moment. And that is what painting should be. You should really give yourself the gift of just going with the flow as you paint it, my turn Out completely different than mine and I bet you look absolutely amazing how this so okay. In order to grow as an artist, you need to be able to lean into the unknown a little bit and just try things. So I'm just working up and down the transmission lines and blending them in without adding more paint to my brush. Family. Let's start establishing where I want these clouds to sit. As we're working through these different sections, a lot of the darker paint was transferring onto my brush. If I flip it over, there's still the lighter color that I started with. So it's a great way just to transfer somewhere like paint to your Canvas as you're working through different sections, but those are going to clean it off or revenue brush. Okay. We're going to leave this area for now and we're going to go around and work this section a little bit. I'm going to pick up a little bit of the shadow color that we put into this section on my brush. So I have a clean brush. You can use any one you have on hand. So I'm going to grab some charcoal gray and Van Dyke brown on this question. Any medium. And what I wanna do is I really want to use this color to kind of blend up into these highlighted areas that we just blocked in. Because I feel like again, I lose all my shadows if I just keep blending the white down into this area, I really want them to pop a little bit more and create some cool dimension to this piece in a circular motion. Just going to transfer this paint to this area. I don't have a lot of paint on my brush, so I'm going to be using this brush for a little bit now and just transferring the shadow color into these different areas. And move your brush around. No straight lines up and down. Circular motions, just keep it moving. Create flow and movement within this piece. By doing this, you're creating different cloud shapes. And you're creating something that's actually interesting for the eye to look at. Now I'm going to grab a little bit of white on that brush. And one thing you can do as you're building clouds is instead of keeping your brush in one position as you move it back and forth, as you can stand it up on its edge, you can flip it over, you can roll it around. By doing that. You're allowing these really interesting shapes to form and you're allowing highlights and shadows to play off one another. And certain section. We'll be doing this with our smaller brushes too, and we do detail work. It just important that your brush is constantly moving and almost like it's dancing along with Canvas. You don't want it to be in one position. You're missing out a lot of magic. If you do that, using that same brush, start working down into different sections. Transferring a little bit of that light paint into those areas. And just playing around with the different shapes of how you can create different Clouds. We're going to be doing a lot more detail work to make these hop. But this color that you already have on your brush is actually really handy to start establishing exactly where you want the different layers to CRT resting. It's very important as you work this piece to take a step back every 10 minutes or so and see exactly what's taking shape when you're really close to your Canvas, you kinda get lost and certain sections and you lose a grasp of the bigger picture by standing back and getting a fresh set of eyes on things you can see one used is change in how the balance can be shifted to really draw yourself into the focal point. Right here. I think that I want more shadows to come up and crawl into these different sections that I'm creating. All right, so using that charcoal gray Van Dyke brown, little bit of your indigo, we're just going to bring the shadows up into this area. I have a lot of pressure on my brush. I just want to transfer that dark color into this section and break up all this symmetry that I kind of creative. I'm moving my brush in that different direction every time I kinda dances across the canvas here just to create pockets of interesting shapes that I can build off of that a lot of pressure on my brush. I really want to transfer this color into these areas right down and break everything up a little bit so that I can pull some highlights into this and really make things pop. Just transferring this color all around this area down into the shoreline of a lot of pressure on my brush. And then we're going to be able to start building up those lighter colors. Once again, up here, I'm a little more charcoal gray and then by ground. So I'm grabbing a fresh brush and what I'm gonna do is not have any pain to it. I'm going to use it to start blending in all these different sections and really make this paint spread out across the canvas into really cool areas. So a long transmission lines. So we just establish, I'm just using a medium amount of pressure on my brush. And I'm just going to walk it all the way around this canvas and work in certain areas. Pushing shadows in and pulling shadows out. Establishing where I want a little bit more dark, a little bit more light. Have fun with this. Does not need to look like mine. But it's really important that you just get used to this blending technique by taking the time to blend everything really well and really softly. If you end up not coming back to a certain section after you've done your detail work, everything is already set and everything looks beautiful in the background, so you don't have to try and fix something after you've already established something in front. So take your time in this section and just blend these transitions. Work on creating movement with your brush. However you want that cloud to sit in your painting and playing around with that blending technique. So using that brush we're just using to do our blending work here. We're going to start creating a little bit of shadow work up here. There'll be can put highlights on to really get some clouds moving through this darker blue section up here. So with that same brush here, we're just using for your blending, grab a little bit more charcoal gray Van Dyke brown, and mix it into a little bit of that blue code. You do not want much on your brush. And with minimal pressure, start letting your brush dance around this section up here. You do not want straight lines. You kind of want really interesting pockets of light to pop through. So just roll your brush around. We're going to come back through and add white to this to really make it stand out. But by allowing your brush to just go over this section and add some of this darker color on top of that pretty blue that we put down. We're going to get a lot easier to pull the white up into this and really make it a neat section. So grabbing a fresh brush or clean up on a year later brushes without grabbing any medium at all. At titanium white. Now you want a fair amount of titanium white on your brush because there is a dark blue base and because we're transferring white paint onto this darker section, a lot of the dark Payne's going to come up onto our brush. So make sure you have a shop towel or a painter is rake handy to wipe off your brush every time you go to put more titanium white on it. Starting on the transmission line. Push your brush up into the dark blue, wipe it off, grab some more titanium white, and start in another section. These clouds are just going to be really random shapes. They do not have to be perfect around. They just need to look like they're actually part of the scene. So just keep wiping off your brush after every time you add some white paint to a certain section. So I'm using just the edge of my brush a lot in order to create the shapes. The flat side of my brush is very wide and I don't want them to be too wide. By using just the edge of my brush, I can adjust the different angles that it hits the canvas and it creates a lot more interesting movement. So keep adding some titanium white to your brush and play around with how you want your clouds to sit in this section does not have to look like what I'm doing if you don't even want to add Cloud. So this section, that's totally fine. But I absolutely love playing around with different types of clouds and making them feel like they work within a painting. I find it very therapeutic and a lot of fun. So I'm just working my way through this section, adding highlights here in there. You can go and change it at any point if you like, as it's awesome oil painting, it does not dry quickly so you can wipe this whole thing off if you want and start again. You do not have to stick with what's your first attempt is. Well, painting really gives you the gift of play. Kind of allows your creative freedom to just feel like it's not tethered to a dry time or anything like that. You can just keep messing around with different sections until you feel happy with it. So keep playing around with the different sizes. You can have big clouds coming into the section or just all little clouds, whatever you like. We're going to come back and add more highlights and our final detail work right now you just need to get rough shapes in and make sure you pull the blue that transfers onto your brush down into this area just a little bit. So that when we blend this together, it picks up all these colors and really looks like it's all part of one scene. 5. Part 4: Final Detail Work: I've grabbed a fresh brush and I'm grabbing some titanium white with just a little bit of Van Dyke brown mixed into it. And what I wanna do is I really want to blend these little cloud work we did into this area a little bit. Still wanted to be in its own little pocket of awesome, but I actually want it just to look a little bit more cohesive. So in this area I'm just going to transfer some of that warmer white. Now, Van Dyke brown really just makes it warm up a little more earth, the air. And it'll allow us to blend in that blue and white that we just mixed up here in our clouds and just kinda helped pull it down into this section. It's gonna take some playing with to really make it look realistic. But right now we're just trying to get it to blend in a little bit more united here. So I really like how this is all starting to come together. And I could play with this area for a long time, but I know leave it alone for now because we have a lot more of detail work to get to. So with some titanium white on my brush, I'm going to come over to this cloud right here. I haven't added into medium. I'm gonna use a lot of pressure. And I'm going to create really interesting shaped by just moving my brush around as I'm pushing it along the canvas, allow it to come up over the area working on a little bit from down a little bit lower. And just keep working on that. Brush out a little bit more titanium, what you don't want too much of the under color to come through. You still want this to be a highlighted area. So as you're allowing that brush just to dance across this area and just really be mindful that you're not just pushing darker paint up into our highlights. Just keep adding a little bit of Titanium white here and there as you go. So I really like how that created some cool movement in this section of the painting, I'm going to use a little bit of Titanium white on my brush. Not too much paint on my brush. And I can come down here into this area. And I want to establish probably about this section, really gentle brushwork. I'm going to push some of this white paint off my brush into this area. I don't want a huge cloud and then start building a few little clouds in here just to get a feel for how I want it to look as we start into a more detailed work. I'm just using the edge of this brush. I haven't transferred a lot of paint into this area. It's just the light color that's pushing on top of that darker color. That's our base. Play around with what happens when you push hard on your brush and what happens when you blend it really softly. You can create really cool shapes already. It's creating one cloud on top of another just by going like that with my brush and blending it in. I absolutely love painting clouds because there is no wrong way to pay into Cloud. Just keep working these areas with your brush, blending it in. Playing around, seeing what shapes you can create if you do not like what you create, if you're not happy but doesn't feel balanced. Wipe off. That's actually with a shop rag or a towel. And start again, just put your shadow back down, start building up some more lighter colors on top and try again. I'm barely using any pressure on my brush and I'm not adding any more paint. But what I am doing is I'm just allowing really subtle transfers of that white to start becoming the various layers of Cloud. But I won't resting in this bottom layer. That's our focal point. We're going to come through and we're going to add pops of white to this. So they do not need to be perfect. But by just using the edge of your brush and not being too worried about what happens when you put that brush onto your Canvas, you are going to start creating some really cool cloud shapes and forms and highlights and shadows. Wherever I feel like I want a Cloud to sit, I just use the corner of my brush and add a little bit of that white paint and then really gently mix it around. When I get to the bottom where that shadow is sitting on this cloud, just gently rub your brush along it to create a little transition. Before we move on to the next step of the painting, I want you to take some time here and really keep playing around with how to create shapes with such subtle movement of your brush without transferring too much paint onto the canvas. And gently blending your transitions, adding white paint here or there, and blending it in and seeing what happens. I really like how this is coming together and I'm really excited to start the final detail work down here along our shoreline and our cloud base. So pick up one of your smaller brushes, anything that has a nice crisp edge and has a lot of suppleness to it. We're going to start just adding a little bit of highlights to these areas to make these base clouds pop a little before we begin working on the shoreline, grab a little bit of your titanium white and a tiny bit of yours truly and blue and your Prussian blue. Now you do not want a lot of the blue on your brush like I just did. And some titanium white to it and really lighten it up. The reason why we want this to have a hint of blue on it is because we don't want this to be too stark white down here. We want it just to have a little bit of a more shadow look to it by putting my brush on the canvas and just gently wiggle in and around up and down. And pulling in a certain direction. It's going to establish a really cool tiny little cloud that is sitting out from the layers of clouds that are above it. It's going to push it out into the foreground a little bit. And these little clouds really help draw the eye down towards our focal point. We don't want this cloud to be brighter than what we're going to build up over here. So you're going to want to blend it in really gent and barely using pressure on my brush, much like we were doing up here in this stage with our highlights in our Cloud work. Use the edge of your brush and really just blend in that white. And really gentle strokes. Pull some of that base shadow up into the bottom of this cloud you just built. If you lose all your shadow at the bottom, that's totally fine. Just grab some of your darker color again and come back and reestablish a shadow underneath. And you can even use that brush to help push that shadow up ever so slightly into this cloud. But play around with this and just get a feel for how you can create a really realistic and Cloud by just continually working that transition between the shadow and the light takes a bit of practice. You are going to be doing it a few more times before we get finished with this piece of take some time here and really have some fun with it. And we'll leave that one for now. We're going to come over to this side. So with one of your smaller brushes, add a little bit more of that titanium white blend on and down around this section, transfer bit of that white into this area. This is our focal point area. So you really want this to be a lot more pronounced than what we did over here. In fact, I think in and knock that back a little bit in a few seconds here right now I'm just going to focus on this cloud. And I really want to just transfer some of the white. Again, letting this cloud to take random shape because I don't want it to be too uniform. It's going to look fake. If you do, the more random the better. And just push this brush that has a lighter color into different areas of these clouds and establish some highlights by just turning it over and transferring some of that weight and then blending it in. You don't want too much white, but you do want to create some highlights in these areas because this is our focal point. We can come back and push it back a little bit with a darker color if you add too much. But it's important just to establish it so that when you stand back, you can see if you've achieved that balance with your piece. I'm just adding a little bit of dark color to my brush just to re-establish the shadows here, I want this section to be pretty dark because I wanted to really push the eye towards this break cloud right here. So by adding my dark shadow line of that base color that we started using to this area. It's going to allow our eye to settle on our focal point. So just keep playing around with the highlights in this area for a few minutes. Until when you stand back, it just feels like it has a real nice feel to it. And after you've done that, we'll move on to the final section of this painting, which will be our shoreline along the horizon. So it will be a fun playing around the detail work on these clouds down along our horizon here. What we're gonna do now is we're just going to put a final pass on our background sky here, and then just finish up our shoreline and create a really beautiful highlight in this area that's going to draw the eye into this focal point. So when my painting I found that's a little too dark in this section. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab one of my brushes that has a medium blue on it. And from this side of the painting with a lot of pressure on that brush, just going to pull it straight across to the other side. I just want to lighten up this section. So if I go and back and forth a few times is just going to transfer enough of that lightness to make this sky pop and just really create a little bit more drama in this area of the painting. And just add a little bit more darker paint to your brush. Make sure you add more Van Dyke and green earth to your brush, then the blues. So for the final steps of our painting, we're just going to build up the shoreline a little bit. What I wanna do is really draw the eye up into this section. So I'm going to create the illusion of some waves coming down at an angle. They're very subtle, but it just enough for the eye to pick up. And what it's gonna do is gonna draw the eye up into that wonderful focal point that we were working on. All claps. Play around with this a little bit. See what happens when your waves are really dark and these lines are really bold. Or when you soften them up and find a spot that you're happy with. You do not need a lot of detail down here. It's very subtle. You want the eye to find balance in this area. So you don't want a lot happening down here, but it needs to be enough just to entice the eye to move up to our focal point. So keep blending in all of these transitions really gently by having minimal pressure on your brush, going back and forth on your canvas, play around with these lines until you are happy with them. I like how subtle these are, so I don't think I'm going to add too much more to this area. So I want to create a little reflection of the clouds reflecting in the wet sand or the water, whatever it is that we've created down here. By using one of my lighter brushes and gently pulling it across the canvas just below that horizon line. It's going to give the illusion that there's a light source hitting the ground. And that's exactly what we want. It's going to keep drawing the eye up towards our focal point. It's very subtle. You don't want it too bright. And you just walk it along the middle section. Don't bring it out all the way to the edges you want the eye to be pulled in. And if you do your line straight across it kind of loses its effect. Play around with that. Add a little bit more into this section if it's a little dark, play around with your contrast and your light. So I really love how this painting has come together. And I'm going to leave you here to play around with the final detail work. I hope that you use all these techniques that we use to continue working on beautiful clouds keeps moving forward. And thank you so much for joining along on this class.