How to paint really realistic clouds alla prima

Hey my friends, welcome back! Yeah, in today's video, we're gonna do the most realistic cloud painting ever. This one here. Yeah, we start by mixing the, yeah, color for the background. Basically the blue of the sky, more or less, as you can see here. Just using titanium white mainly, phthalo blue, some cadmium red, some purple, and I'm slowly, yeah, kind of mixing towards the color I'm aiming for, this very dark blue here, more or less. Then I spread it out to three pools and light up the second and the third pool with the brushes here that I'm gonna use. Yeah, then I start to apply color. I'm more or less, yeah, sparing out the center part of the cloud. The cloud body itself, you can see here, getting a bit lighter towards the horizon line, more or less. Colors not thinned down at all, hint of linseed oil to it, but, yeah, that's basically, more or less, all of it, and you see, it takes already, yeah, kind of shape, more or less, kind of the cut-out form, the cloud body itself. Then I grab some smaller brushes here, some linseed oil, and start to oil out the painting surface, yeah, really to make sure that the color is not sucked into the surface here. And then I start to mix the colors again, kind of, by, yeah, first thing, you might be shocked, clouds aren't really white, at least those clouds here. They have very little white parts to them. And we start with the grayish color. And I think the key part here is for you to take away, that we, yeah, kind of want to paint bubbly elements, more or less. See it here, I'm starting with the grayish color, and I, then, in the middle of this grayish color, I put in some lighter color. And this simple effect kind of builds up the volume of this part of the cloud. Same goes for this area here, kind of surrounding it, this grayish color, then I go back and add some lighter color in the middle, more or less. It's basically very simple, from the base principle here. You know, the detail shot, how the edge of the cloud should look like. See, I'm letting it fade out in some areas. Very, yeah, very strong, very, kind of fades away to the blue of the background. On some other areas we have color a bit more solid. A bit further down the road we have now the very strong next layer, kind of. I mean, we have several other layers already put on. See here, some bubbly elements, more or less. And, you know, I'm showing you how I'm building up the next layer, the next darker cloud part here by just putting on those darker colors. And it's always kind of a process to really let it fade out enough to the already applied color we have in the background and have enough contrast with the darker color to make this layer kind of stand out, more or less, to make it look just a bit coming out a bit more. So see here, I'm again building up those bubbles, kind of. And I'm also not trying to replicate or do things twice. Never do things twice when it comes to painting clouds, see here. Again, I'm really trying to be as random as possible when it comes to the shape of these little extensions, also the shape of those smaller bubbles here that we have. It's basically very simple. I'm going back with the darker color and then I blend with the larger, a bit lighter color. And we already build up the next kind of bubbly element, this cloud part here. And then I'll go back and light up some areas, give them even more contrast to get this bubble even more going on. And on a larger scale we apply the color here, the very light color first, you can see here. Then I'll go back and start to build up those little elements that kind of also again build up those bubbles that we have here. Imagine kind of an air balloon where you have put on some color and just stretch it and stretch it and stretch it and this color gets lighter. And the same has to happen here with this cloud that kind of bubbles out from the middle, from the inside out, more or less. And this is basically what I'm trying to trick the viewer's eye into seeing here, just painting those bubbles, more or less. Going back and forth, adding some darker color to enhance it a bit more, staying a bit lighter in some areas, really fine tuning. It took quite a while to build up this little cloud painting here. Also added some extensions here and there to the outside. First I paint them very rough, then I go back, grab a brush with no color to it and start to kind of fade out the area. So we have really parts where the cloud body is fading out, kind of melting into the background. Some parts were really very solid looking. And this is, I think, another key part. Here now we have done the most, the hardest part is already kind of done, more or less. We can be a bit more loose in this area here, because those bubbles are a bit larger, more or less. But you still need to keep in mind that you want to kind of break up this cloud body itself. And those parts that emerge from the inside are the lighter bits. And this is something you need to kind of translate onto the painting surface here. You also need to have some color variations, some darker parts here and there, some a bit lighter ones, a bit more rough ones. And really try to not repeat yourself, shape-wise, those bubbles that kind of emerge. It's really, I think, one of the biggest secrets to painting realistic clouds, that people tend to repeat their patterns. And I'm also one of those guys to do so. But I'm really fighting my habits and therefore really try to break up the cloud bodies and be as random as possible concerning the shape, the clouds, those little bubbles here. Here now I'm adding some more darkness in the area where we have no light hitting in. And the area beneath on the right side kind of is lit up by the sunlight kind of bouncing back from the clouds we have on the right side, on the lower right side, kind of like an apple when you hold it up against the sunlight. Sunlight kind of bounces back from the surface, from your hand and lights up the part of the cloud body, of the apple in this case, that is in the shadow areas. And this is the same that I tried here. Here I'm breaking up the color scheme, kind of. Trying to add some, a bit more bluer color to the whole thing. And first trying to establish the bubbliness, the 3D look, this whole thing. Then I'm adding those detail parts here. The small brush first. Looks very rough, I know. But I then go back and kind of fine blend those areas so that they don't look, so that they really fit into the other parts that we painted already. Kind of letting it fade out, more or less. And really be gentle. These brush strokes are like, I know I said this before, but petting the parrot is really the best word to describe it. Here I'm setting in some different shaped clouds. You might think it looks like crap. Just wait a moment. Just put the color in very rough in the first place and then I start to fine blend with a fresh brush, very soft one. Start to level out, to equalize, to rework some parts, to make this whole thing a bit softer looking. Really trying to avoid those brush marks, more or less. That's a very easy technique of getting very quick to a very nice result, I think. Yeah, that's the finished painting. That's it for today. Before you leave, hit that like button, that subscribe button. This video here is also available as a full-time real-time tutorial on my Patreon. Link is down below here. We have meanwhile over 100 full-time real-time tutorials between 2 and 10 hours of in-detail painting. You should check it out. Bye!