Painting fluffy clouds

As a child it was fun to look for pictures in the clouds, sighting dragons, castles, lanterns, snakes, and an endless assortment of other objects in their fleeting perfection as they drifted across the sky, slowly morphing into yet more surprising and wonderful shapes.  This game of can you find the snowman, etc... seems to flip when you get older and start to paint. Now it isn't so much what do you see in the clouds but rather which of those white blobs in that painting is a cloud. The guessing game for artist and art viewer alike. Ah, the elusiveness of those simple, floating masses of vapor.

Over the last week, I have seen several people ask about painting cumulous (fluffy) clouds in acrylics or oils. I am by no means an expert in cloud painting, there are so many wonderful cloud painters out there. However, I have painted a few in my day. And so I want to share the way approach this difficult subject in my own work.

First of all a few general observations, I have made.

-Clouds are often smallest near the horizon, fluffing up as they rise. They become huge billowing pillars or piles before once again fading out. In the very high sky, they are smaller again or absent altogether.

- Clouds are often flat on the bottom shaped a bit like a laden plate of whipped cream or a jellyfish. This bottom area is also often in shadow.

- Although there are certainly clouds with crisp edges more often than not the edges with be sort of faded or windswept.

- If you are looking up at mountains it will often appear that a mist is rising from behind them, these are the clouds that are partially blocked from view. If you are standing on the mountain the clouds will, of course, be above you once again.

The following pictures are a simple demonstration I just painted this evening for the purpose of this post. It is not finished, or a complete painting.

Step 1:

Dab on a bit of white paint where you generally want the cloud to be.

Step 2:

Using circular motions and a dry brush, move the paint outward from the center. The very edges can be wispy as the very last bits of paint are rubbed into the canvas.

Step 3:
   Add a grey shadow to the bottom and deeper parts of the cloud. Keeping in mind that the white part will form round bumps.

Step 4:

    Take a bit of white and begin to reapply it to the sunlit areas blending as you go

Step 5:

   Highlight with pure white.

Step 6:
   Adjust the white values below the highlight.

Step 7:

   Go back in and deepen the shadows in either grey or colors reflecting the sky or sunset.

I added a few stones to the foreground of this painting to add a bit of perspective. It will eventually become an actual picture. When these layers of paint are dry, I will go in and add my shadows, in the meantime here is a picture with finished clouds.

 Have you painted clouds before? What is your technique? Let me know in the comments.







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