HOW TO PAINT CLOUDS ☁️ 3 easy steps in Acrylic #acrylic #painting #clouds #art #tutorial

Hi everybody and welcome back to my channel. I'm Joanie Young and you're watching a tutorial on how to paint clouds step by step. I'm going to take my time showing you all the brush strokes, color mixing, and the easiest way to make it look like you spent hours on creating a beautiful dramatic looking cloud and sky like this. So hit subscribe and stay tuned. So let's just go over a few of the supplies we're using today. I've got a 16 by 20 canvas. You can use a smaller size if you want or whatever size canvas that you want. And I'm going to be working on covering up the canvas with a number 50 filbert brush. You can also use any large brush, maybe one like this. It's just something big enough to cover the background with. Now the colors I'm going to be using today only are titanium white, light blue violet, phthalo blue, and mars black. I'm going to start by getting the canvas a little bit wet. What this does is help make the canvas nice and slippery and it extends the paint a lot more. It makes it really easy to cover the canvas. So now that it's a little bit wet, I'm going to take my blue with a little bit of black and start covering the entire canvas. See how much easier it spreads around where we have that water? So you're not going constantly to your palette for more paint. I want to have some areas of the sky a little bit darker than others. This will really help to add some more dimension and add a little bit more water to my brush and some white now. I'm going to use some blue violet down here on the bottom and just mix that in. Okay and I'll come over and add those same colors, blue violet, blue and black, and finish this up. A little bit of water again on my brush. I'm going to use the rest of that blue violet with just a little bit of white and then just right here lighten up this area. So the idea is just to have a few lighter spots in your background. You can add yours anywhere you want, they don't have to be exactly where mine are. For beginning a shape of my cloud, I'm going to choose right about here, so not halfway down the canvas, about three quarters of the way down, and I'm going to take more of my blue and my black. And while this is still kind of wet, I'm just going to start pulling. This is going to be where we're going to have our darkest shadow on our cloud. Just a few lines like this and if it's looking a little bit too black, then what you can do is just take a little bit of white and lighten it. So we just want to gently start to bring it back up more in this section here. Okay, so now that this is all dry, we can choose a brush to start coming in with a shape of our clouds, and I'm going to be using a filbert brush. This one is a number nine, possibly a number 12, anything around between 9 and 12, and of course it depends on how big you want your clouds to be and how big your canvas is. So this is the appropriate size, and as I add a little bit more details, I'll go down in a few sizes to one of my smallest filbert brushes, but I'll show you that a little bit later on as we add finishing touches and highlights on the clouds. But this is the one we're going to start with. So I'm going to take some titanium white, and you guys can use any white you want, any blue you want, any black you want. And I love using the filbert brush for clouds because it's already got that round end to it, so that really makes it easy to get a poofy nice shape with all those little half circles to make it look kind of like bubbly and fluffy looking. Okay, so I'm going to start here at the top, and here you can see we've already just by tapping, you can tap to make those shapes, or you can start making little brush strokes like this, going counterclockwise or clockwise, little half circles. You don't even have to take your brush off of the canvas, you can just keep traveling around with it. I'm going to make this the highest point of my cloud up here, and then I'm going to start bringing it out, puffy puffy little half circles, and then bringing it back in. I can start over here, I'm going to start adding a little bit more paint now. You could also use the end of your brush if you want to make a little bit more uneven looking shapes to your clouds. This is a nice way to do that rather than switching over to a little round brush or liner brush, but I'm going to show you a few different brushes today to help to create details on clouds like this. So you don't want to skip forward, you want to watch everything throughout this whole video so you don't miss anything, and you gain as much info and tips as you can. So I'm going to start working my way out here now, and then I'm going to bring it back in, a little bit more paint, then I'm going to come over this dark line here, just slightly over that. Okay, so this is the beginning stages of our cloud. I'm going to wash my brush off, it's a little bit damp just from that bit of water, and I'm going to come right under here and start to just do the same brush stroke. I'm using the paint that I just applied to just soften, so I'm making it very transparent, very soft looking. We're using the dark base color that we used to paint the canvas with for our shadows, so all we're doing here is just thinking about the highlights, so that saves us the work of coming back in and adding shadows after. You can if you want. I'm just going to come in with a little bit more white, and I'm going to show you how we can start layering up. So we're going to leave a few spaces, about an inch down from here, and then I'm going to start another layer. I'm not thinking about copying following that same design, right, or that same basic shape. I'm just going to make a different one here. Can you hear that gentle sort of scrapey noise? It's a very, very light scumble or blending. It's as the the paints and the water start to run out of my brush, my brush starts to dry a little bit, and you can get a very nice soft blending this way. So this will give you some softer shades and layers within your clouds, from your darkest shadows to your brightest highlights. It's important to have those mid-tones. So I'm going to just keep layering here, sometimes using more white, and it's so simple. This is all you do to create a 3D looking cloud with that dark background and adding some highlights, and then those gentle, softer, thinner amounts of paint in between. Okay, so here I'm coming back in, and I'm going to soften up some areas, load my brush up again, start another layer, so you can bring it over, and then you can start to kind of twirl around with your brush. Okay, we're going to come down here and add a light, thin, watered-down layer, gradually lightening this up one layer at a time. I've got to tell you, it's really, really satisfying painting clouds on a dark canvas like this. You just get that instant pop because you have all those shadows. As soon as you add the highlights, it's right there, and it's just really a satisfying way to paint. It looks like you've spent hours on it to build up and you haven't, so I'm hoping that you guys are going to have a much easier time and get a little bit more excited about painting your clouds after watching this. And while it's fresh in your mind, after watching this, put it on again and start following along one step at a time. You can pause, stop the video in between, and do the steps one at a time with me, and then once you've done that step, hit play on the video again and keep going. You don't have to follow along at the speed I'm going. I'm going to brush down here a little bit and start to go across part of this dark, dark shadow here that we have. And I'm going to come right in here, and I'm going to bring another layer, another cloud, and some highlights in here. Now I'm going to wash my brush off, make sure it's still a little damp, right? And we're just... I've got a little bit too much water on my brush. Just soften. You want to soften and get as close to that next cloud as you can, so it just is like ombre, right? Light to dark, gradually. And I'll take another little bit of white, and I'll add just a little baby cloud right here, and then continue along with this one right here. I've got a little bit of blue in here, which is fine. We can mix up some of that black blues and then add a little bit. It's so pretty. And again, you can use any blue that you want. You just add a little bit right down here, a little bit in here. This will give us a bit of a smoky look to some of the clouds. And then I'm just gonna gently blend, sort of just smush around with my brush, and then soften. Soften a little bit like that. Okay, I'll take a little bit more paint, come in here and do the same thing. I'm gonna get right up to that white, gently, gently blend. Use whatever's left on my brush right here. Work that out. Now I'm gonna come in with my white. I haven't washed my brush off, and I'm gonna start another layer right here. This one's gonna come really close to these guys over here, and then start to layer up a little bit more. And if you lose the shape of your filbert, just kind of give it a quick little wiggle like that. And I like to apply the paint on the tip of the brush. That's really where I want to add these little peaks and my brightest highlights. And with my brush up, as the paint starts to dry, it's starting to look a little bit darker. So we need to come over and add a few more highlights. And it's so enjoyable that you don't even mind taking the extra time. You know you're in that good creative headspace when it really just doesn't feel like a challenge. Challenges are kind of fun too, don't get me wrong, but when you feel like you're just at one with a canvas and your brush, it's kind of like riding a bike, right? You just don't even think about it anymore, you're just going. And that's kind of how I feel when I'm painting. I feel like I'm going, my brush and I are on a little journey together. I'm going on an adventure. Okay, so I'm liking how this is looking. I want to add a little bit more of my blue, and I'm going to take a little bit more of my blue-violet. Oh, and if you guys are curious, this is the blue-violet I'm using, Liquitex Basics Acrylic. If you guys want to know more about the paints that I use and favorite brushes of mine, I have two random videos out that are really informative, and I have a lot of links below those videos too where you can find those brushes. And I go in-depth with brush stroke, similar to what I'm doing here. Those are the waterfalls, and if you're on Patreon, you get exclusive content and videos that you won't see here on my channel. So anyways, I'm going to take the blue with a little bit of black, both blues, I think they look really pretty together, they make a really gorgeous blue, and I'm going to start adding it down here. They're different temperatures, these blues, and that's why it starts to make the painting really come alive. Take a little bit more and I'm going to add it over here. Just a little bit here on the tip of my brush, holding my brush on an angle and kind of pushing on the edge, see that gentle little push? So I'm pushing like this, so maybe it's easier if I can hold it up here and I'll show you from this level, pushing it so it's making it kind of flat on that end. And all this does is give you a little bit more control with the width and the amount that you want to add. And we'll keep going right down here. I'm going to make this a little bit darker. More blue, black, blues and black, now water, quite a bit of water on my brush for this. And then my violet. Now right where I left off, I'm going to gently work that up while the paint and the canvas is still wet, right? And then you get a really pretty soft, almost looks like oil paint. Just darken the edge here a little bit. I'm using three more brushes for this painting. This will be the next one. This is my number two smallest filbert brush that I have. I'm going to get it a little bit wet to loosen up those bristles, take some white and I'm just going to start making some more tight little peaks on my clouds. You don't have to stay in any lines. You can be very free with this. You can go over what's already there. You can go a little bit below. I'm going to scramble out the rest of the paint. Now I'm showing you guys lots of layers just because the more you see me do these techniques, then the more you'll grasp the concept and get that idea. But you can paint a cloud with, you know, half the amount of these layers. You don't have to use all these or apply as many layers as I have here. I think it looks quite pretty. So again, just the same technique as when I was using the bigger filbert. I'm just making some tighter little half circles and little bubbles and peaks. Okay, I'm going to come in here. This really gives us a sense of for making the peaks and details on your brush. And the next one I'm going to be demonstrating is my liner brush. Now you can use any size liner that you want. This one happens to be a three. I'm going to get it wet. Again, the water really helps. The paint come out of your brush helps it flow and it protects your brush from drying out and getting ruined. So I just want to kind of roll it around and get a little amount here on the tip of the brush. I'm just going to place my pinky here where I know it's dry on the canvas. Then I'm going to add this little half circles. Sometimes you can just kind of do it really quickly and start twirling around with your brush. Now I've used these techniques for lots of clouds in my painting tutorials. Here I've used the same technique with brighter colors, lots of different colors, my fantasy paintings. So with this technique you can paint clouds in any colors that you want. I'm just going to keep going back here for more paint and continue to add these little circles, little squiggles, not little circles but half circles. So much easier when you kind of let go and you just get into a little rhythm with your paintbrush. It'll look a lot more natural too when you do that. Just get a little bit of water in my brush and just start kind of making it blend and give more of a faded look. Okay, then I'm going to come in here and I'm going to go in both directions with some more water and then you can use a paintbrush or just your finger if you want just to get a little bit more blending in there. Then you can also make some scallops or the scalloped edge but try to make it not look uniform. You want to make it so sometimes you'll go down, make it a little bit crooked and then bring those scallops up. You just don't want it to be really symmetrical everywhere. It won't look natural that way. Okay, so I'm going to just add a little bit more and then I'll show you how you can really make this powerful looking sky by adding some beautiful sun rays. So you can just, you know, keep going and adding more and more peaks to your clouds or keep it a little more simple and have less than what I've got here but like I said I always want to show you a lot. Repetition is key so every time you're watching me do this you're grasping the concept more. I'm just going to wash that brush out and get started on these sun rays. So I'm not going to dry this off. You can add your sun rays with it dry or you can start adding them if your cloud is still wet. Sometimes I like to catch a little bit of that paint on the edge. I think it just looks so pretty and it'll probably happen so I'll be able to demonstrate that. So I've got a number 10, 10 to 12 flat brush here. I recommend using a flat brush for your sun rays. Of course you can use something a little bit bigger if you want or smaller and I'm just going to lift the bar up here because I'll need to get to the top and it's covering the area I need to get to so I'll just lift that up there. So what you want to do is get your brush wet. You want the paint to be transparent just like rays are. Okay and I want to tint my white with a bit of that blue violet and I think I'm going to need a little bit more water so it's not dripping but it's very see-through and easy for me to start adding some rays to. So I'm going to start right here start pulling on a bit of an angle. I need to wipe some of that off. I need a little bit more water in my brush so you'll get a feel for what you need as you practice but see how I just picked a little bit of that up? I like that. I think that's really pretty. We've got little peaks, little areas and breaks in the clouds where that light is coming from. So I'll just clean this off but see already compare the sides how pretty that looks. Okay that's very pretty. Like I said it just speaks volumes. It's very powerful and I'll start I want this to be a little bit softer so I'll start over here just a little flick I need a little bit more water on my brush a bit more of that blue. So if you want you can have your rays behind. If you want to paint your sun rays first I kind of like adding them after though and I'll just keep going here. Yeah so you really want to make sure you're using enough water also enough paint and you'll know once it dries if you've used enough paint because if you have too much water and not enough paint it'll look okay once you're applying it because when it's wet it's gonna show up but when it dries it'll just evaporate and you'll be left with really hardly anything. Okay and then I'll just add a little bit here keep going this small recipe water white and blue I'm going to take a larger brush go back to my damp it's still a little bit wet 30 and just work a little bit of those sun ray colors a little bit down here now back over to my little filbert brush for the finishing touches a little bit more white a little bit of black and blue right under here a little bit of violet. Thanks so much for watching this video hope you guys enjoyed it learned a lot I'll see you guys all soon in my next video bye everybody!