How to paint clouds - what you must do to produce a highly realistic cloud painting

Hey my friends, welcome back. In today's video we're going to paint one of your favorite subjects. We're going to paint a hairy, realistic cloud. I'm using here those six colors to mix three colors for the sky and one for the clouds themselves more or less. Using here an MDF plate that I have to prime with the linseed oil that I'm using and then I apply the color very thick to basically cover the white of the canvas completely. Also I'm already starting to shape the form of the cloud that I'm going to apply later on. You see already the rough shape of the cloud and a really nice blending of the blue that we have here. Getting a bit lighter towards the horizon line and then I start to put on the base color of the clouds. You see I'm already trying to establish the shape more or less. Also really make sure that you cover the white of the canvas as best as possible. You don't want to have any white kind of left, it really needs to be covered very solid. I'm also blending the lower end. Here I'm using these brushes here, really make sure that you have just fine and soft brushes. Then I let the whole thing dry for a week or two to really make sure it's bone dry. I'm grabbing the same colors basically, I added some lemon yellow but I didn't use it at all. So just the same six colors, mixing just four colors for the whole thing and we are already a bit into this process so that you see how it looks and how it's done more or less. Make sure you check out my Patreon, link is somewhere down below here, where we have this video here along nearly a hundred others in a full-time version, no time-lapse, ton of details, between two and nine hours of pure painting. Make sure you check it out. Here you see I'm starting with the brightest color and when I zoomed in you have seen that I really try to be fuzzy at the edge. Don't ever paint clouds at this stage without any little extensions, little break-ups, they are really, really, really highly important so that the whole thing really starts to look realistic. Then I'm adding this bit darker color, I'm trying to blend a little bit to get a nice transition, get in this 3D look already, in these areas here. But you also need and want some, you don't want to blend the whole thing like an apple, you know, it needs to have some color break-ups more or less. Also note the different size brushes that I'm using here, for the lighter parts I'm using mainly these very fine round brushes here, 0 to 4.0. Then I start to kind of build up the reflection that we have from the clouds on the left side, lighting up the lower end of this, yeah, kind of bubble that we, yeah, just painted. A lot of people tend to paint clouds like, or treat clouds like a flat surface, and this is the only thing that you are not allowed to do when it comes to painting clouds. Clouds have shape, have 3D, they behave like an apple, kind of, I mean they have a different structure, as you can see here, and very fine details, little break-ups, little, yeah, bits and pieces that catch the light, more or less, but the cloud itself is a round object. Even those smaller things that we have here, those, yeah, you know, little detail shots, you see I'm adding even smaller details, you see, I have small hands, just to remind you, and I'm adding the tiniest bits of details here and there to enhance the realism that we want to paint here. And you see I'm grabbing a lighter color and light up kind of the backlight that, yeah, needs to be there to make a cloud look really realistic. Wasn't quite there, so I grab some more lighter color and start to really light up from back this lighter color on the left side is not the color from the sky, it's basically the color from the sun bouncing back from the clouds on the left side, more or less. So it's really, yeah, keep an eye on this light situation that the 3D effect and the volume really kicks in, more or less. You know, I'm setting in the colors very roughly, kind of pre-blending them with the lighter color on the left side. I will later on grab an even larger brush to really, yeah, fine blend even more, getting even lighter on the left side as we are coming down and nearing more towards the, yeah, cloud body on the left side. And you see I'm grabbing again a bit of a lighter color and start to light up again on the left side this bubbly part of the cloud that we have in the front. Yeah, I just added a bit of, yeah, another extension, more or less. It looked a bit too, yeah, boring, a bit too artificial. And again I'm having, yeah, the lighter parts on the upper end and the very dark color and, yeah, a bit more of a lighter color on the lower end. The same goes for this part here, you see I'm with this dark color here in the mid part section. And on the left side we light the whole thing up again. Yeah, but, yeah, this is really, yeah, crucial for painting realistic clouds, to make it really look bubbly and 3D and, yeah, just realistic. On the left side we have, yeah, a lot more of those, yeah, strong lit cloud parts. Again you see this fuzziness that we have here, those clouds. Yeah, a ton of small extensions, parts that break up from the, yeah, main body, kind of. And a ton of very, yeah, fine little bubbles that extend from those areas. And also again the lightest color on the right side, then a bit of a darker one in the middle. And getting lighter in some areas, the light is bouncing back from the other cloud parts here, kind of lighting up the left side in some areas. This is so crucial and basically easy when it comes to painting clouds. When you got this principle once and for all, you, yeah, I think you can never fail again to paint clouds. I mean, at least clouds that, cumulus clouds like this here, a very, yeah, sunlit part here. And again, adding those tiniest bits of details here and there, that really helps to, yeah, communicate this fuzziness, this softness, this fluffiness of those cloud bodies more or less, parts of this area here. And again, we have those darker areas, and again, the light bouncing off on the left side, lighting up parts of the clouds that are in the shadows. And this is, yeah, so crucial to, yeah, just paint realistic-looking, bubbly, 3D-looking clouds. Yeah, same time, it's pretty simple, but, yeah, you need to understand this whole thing, and it's, yeah, pretty easy. Yeah, that's the finished cloud painting. So, that's about it for today. Hit that like button, that subscribe button, and, yeah, see you next time. Bye!