How To Paint A Sky In Oils

Robie is an artist who loves sharing what she has learned about art and painting in the promise that it might assistance other creatives.

Learn tips and tricks for painting more realistic clouds in the sky. Learn to observe things like atmospheric and linear perspective, how sky colors are less intense in the altitude and more than intense in the clouds closer to united states of america, and more than tips.

Photo past Laura Vinck on Unsplash; Image created with Canva

What Yous Demand to Know Almost Painting Clouds and Skies

I'one thousand sharing ten things about painting clouds and skies that I learned the difficult way. Hopefully, they will help other artists to avoid some painting struggles.

ten Things to Consider When Painting Skies

1. The importance of soft edges in skies
2. Chromatic grays enhance the vibrant parts of a painting
3. Atmospheric perspective
4. Nothing is truly white in the sky
5. Don't be beholden to the photograph
6. Utilize bigger brushes
7. The lightest calorie-free is much lighter than you'd recall
8. Thick paint versus glazes
9. Linear perspective in clouds
10. Rendering clouds as solid objects

We are going to await into each one in detail. Let'south brainstorm!

1. The Importance of Soft Edges in Skies

How you lot render edges is critical when painting the sky.

Difficult vs Soft Edges

• A hard edge defines neatly where an object ends and the next starts.
• A soft edge is when the color of an object fades or blends into the adjacent one.

Both sky and clouds have some of the softest edges you tin find in nature. Like in any function of the painting, in clouds, a residuum betwixt soft and hard edges is very important. Edges volition assist yous depict the volume of the clouds and the translucency.

• Parts of the clouds are so thin that the sky behind shows through. Mixing the sky color into the cloud colour, and keeping the edges soft and cleaved will assist a lot.
• As well, the sky over the horizon gradually changes color. This tin be described very well with glazes and blending.
• For abrupt edges apply thick paint with no blending.

If you lot are painting with acrylics, it gets a little trickier to blend edges, you'll have to human action quickly earlier the painting dries. It may help to use a retardant like the Liquitex tiresome-dry blending medium or to apply Open up Golden acrylic paint, which has a much longer drying time than regular acrylics. I've tried both and the open acrylic has the reward of coming in many colors, the retardant medium requires y'all to practise the piece of work of mixing information technology with the colors you are using, but it has the advantage to require the purchase of just one bottle.

Learn more virtually edges in painting.

Example of soft and difficult edges in clouds. "Much Needed" Detail - Oil painting by Robie Benve, all rights reserved

Robie Benve Art

2. Chromatic Grays Enhance the Vibrant Parts of a Painting

Every bit much as I honey the bright colors of sunsets, I shortly realized that a painting full of only intense colors does non look good. You need some neutral colors in in that location to enhance the more intense areas.

Create Grays With Triads of Complementary Colors

Some tiresome and "ugly" colors are necessary to brand the vibrant colors sing. Grays are a smashing complement to a colorful heaven. A bright orange will look even brighter if placed next to a grayness.

When I say grayness, I don't hateful a mixture of black and white or gray from a tube. I similar to mix my grays using several of the colors that I have in the heaven and in the rest of the painting.

• To keep the grays chromatic while ensuring color harmony, create grays with triads of complementary colors.

Roll to Go on

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three. Atmospheric Perspective

The more distance between us and an object, the stronger the filtering effect of the atmosphere.

Looking into the distance, colors and hues change, due to the corporeality of air and particles that are between the viewer and the object. This happens both on land and in the sky and it's known as atmospheric perspective.

Clouds on the Horizon Are Cooler and Lighter

Look at a view that expands to the horizon and notice how:

• Colors are less intense in the altitude, more intense in the objects closer to us.
• Colors are libation in the distance and warmer in the foreground.
• Value contrasts become smaller in the distance.
• The sky is darker upwards above our heads and gets lighter moving toward the horizon.

Knowing how to paint atmospheric perspective is a very important factor when rendering a mural or a skyscape.

iv. Nothing is Truly White in the Heaven

Everything in nature is influenced by the color of lite. I used to paint the acme of the sunlit clouds a pure white.

And so I realized that the color of light and the reflection of the blueish sky affect all the colors in the landscape, including clouds. Nothing is true white in the sky.

Chromatic Whites

Thus, I started tinting the white with yellow, magenta, violet, or blueish, depending on the weather weather condition and whether or not a deject is in direct sunlight. At the minimum, I mix a tiny fleck of transparent orange into my white, to add some warmth.

I use zinc white for mixing into colors, and titanium white in highlights. That's considering titanium white is very opaque and lightens the colors very quickly, making them look chalky. Zinc white is more than transparent and allows you to keep the vibrancy of the colors while lightening them.

"Glimpse" —oil on canvas past Robie Benve, all rights reserved

Robie Benve Fine art

5. Don't Be Beholden to the Photograph

If yous are painting from a photo, experience costless to exit out elements that are in the photo just are not helping the composition. Information technology'south often a good thought to edit the shape of clouds, move trees, shine a coastline, etc.

Change Things as Needed to Improve the Painting

Be open to changes that are good for the overall composition of your picture. Your painting volition not exist hanging next to the reference photo, no one will know if the cloud was rounder or the trees were all the same size.

Also, when painting from a photo keep in mind that the photographic camera alters colour relationships. Dark areas wait much darker in a photograph; shadows tend to lose all the details. When observed in real-life, shadow areas are actually all the same showing much of their local color and variations.

In the cease, the photo will non be hanging next to the painting, experience gratuitous to correct things and move them around for the sake of the painting.

half-dozen. Use Bigger Brushes

I thought I was using skilful size brushes. But I kept proverb I wanted to paint loser. I was complaining that my paintings looked overworked. Then I understood: I needed to use bigger brushes.

Paint From Full general to Specific

At the start of the painting, your brushes should be the biggest and go smaller as you approach the completion of the painting.

• Think bigger shapes, don't focus on details until the very terminate of the painting. Paint general to specific.
• Start by brushing in sparse pigment with huge brushes, blend the edges. Just to requite you lot an idea, for a 20x24 inch canvas, I first with ii-inch brushes.
• Throughout the painting, keep using bigger brushes than those you lot would instinctively use. Selection upwards a brush, then put it down and switch to 1 a couple of sizes bigger.
• At the stop, add together details with small-scale brushes, only don't overdo information technology.

A beautiful cloudy day reference photo I have taken i day from up the steps at the stadium. Await at perspective, coloration, size, and lighting.

Robie Benve

vii. The Lightest Light Is Much Lighter Than You Would Think

This is another very important concept that I had a difficult time agreement at the beginning. Yellowish is a low-cal color, correct? And so why was the yellow sky in my sunset looking like it wasn't low-cal enough?

The Sky Is Oft the Lightest Shape in Your Painting

Comparing a value chart to my reference photograph and to my painting, I could tell that what I thought was a light value paint color, very often was much darker than I thought.

There is a disconnection virtually how a color looks while nosotros are mixing it compared to when nosotros utilise information technology to the painting. Temperature and value are relative to what surrounds a colour. A color might look warm on the palette, but appear cool once practical on the canvas.

Similarly, I detect myself mixing a low-cal value, but to discover out that it'south way besides dark when I test it on the canvas. Every bit a rule of thumb, even on a hazy 24-hour interval, the sky is most probable the lightest shape in your painting.

• When mixing a very light color, start from a light colour (i.eastward. white) and add your darker colors a tiny bit at a fourth dimension. It'south easier to get darker if it's too lite but hard as heck to make a night colour lighter.

Value Calibration

Robie Benve, CC-Past-NC

eight. Thick Paint vs Glazes

The heaven is made of air, vapor, and particles. I like to start with very a thin wash of paint. With acrylics, I dilute them with water, with oils I thin them with odorless turpentine, so I use glazes on the canvas, varying the colors of the glazes: calorie-free value in some areas, and darker in others, depending on the bailiwick.

Start Sparse and End Thick

This initial layout of darks and lights helps me organizing my composition. I start this way both for the sky and more solid objects on the basis. One time I have the layout of the painting clear, I start applying thicker paint in some areas. I have learned that in most cases information technology looks better if darker colors are applied thinner.

In the sky, I utilise thicker paint for clouds that I desire to appear more solid or closer to the viewer.

"Featherlike" oil painting by Robie Benve, all rights reserved. Sometimes clouds are light and swept by the wind, like this colorful one.

Robie Benve Fine art

nine. Linear Perspective in Clouds

Lines and proportions in the heaven are affected by the same rules of perspective that employ to objects on the ground, with vanishing points and all lines pointing towards them.

Vanishing Indicate

If you look at the clouds from an airplane, yous realize that they are floating parallel to the surface of the Earth. When yous look at the clouds from the ground, it's like looking up from nether a huge table, where the clouds are the tabletop.

Clouds are getting smaller as they get closer to the vanishing point, simply as any other object would respond to linear perspective.

10. Rendering Clouds as Solid Objects

When cartoon or painting the shape of clouds, it helps to think of them every bit solid objects. Though they have irregular edges and they might be transparent, visualize them as cuboids, box-shaped objects.

This helps a lot when rendering shadows and lights areas of a cloud.

Soft-Edged Boxes

If you are painting clouds, brand a sketch first on a separate slice of paper, using simple value shapes. Draw them equally boxes. Determine which sides are in low-cal, shade, fractional shade, or reflected calorie-free.

That will be your reference for your painting, but you'll take to make the edges soft, irregular, and rounder to take good-looking clouds.

Painting Clouds Tin Be Intimidating

I can spend hours looking at the sky and the ever-changing clouds. Especially, I love sunsets. They make me smile within. Maybe because of this emotional zipper or just considering of visual pleasure, a few years back I started putting more than emphasis on the heaven of my landscape paintings.

At first, I was terrified of painting clouds. In one case on the canvas, they never looked every bit I "painted" them in my head; most of the fourth dimension my painted clouds appeared very amateurish, kind of childish. Just I kept trying. I started looking for art books and read near painting skies; I started watching painting videos on the subject field.

The Benefit of Self-Taught Art Lessons

I am very attracted to scenes with astounding sunsets and gorgeous clouds, and one solar day I started painting them.

At some point, information technology dawned on me that slowly I had created a series of paintings with the sky every bit the master focus, near of which were sunsets, and they weren't bad! Through my cocky-taught art lessons, I really got much better at painting skies.

I became known among my friends for my sky paintings. In fact, my first solo fine art showroom was all about skies. The bill of fare of my first solo art show in 2015.

Robie Benve Art

Every Painting Teaches You Something New

Looking dorsum at my first deject painting, I realize how much I learned in the last 3 years about painting skies. I keep working on it. Reading art books and articles, watching tutorials, taking classes, but especially painting, putting paint to sheet, helps me empathize what works and what doesn't.

How Near You...

This content is accurate and truthful to the all-time of the author'due south knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional person.

Questions & Answers

Question: There are times when I run into a cloud germination where the primary cloud in the sky is vivid white! I've called my husband at work to go exterior and encounter this unreal vivid white cloud! I experience that if I were painting that deject, titanium white straight from the pallet would show what I was seeing! Am I wrong almost the bright white?

Answer: I concord, sometimes that the clouds appear really white. I used to pigment them with titanium white correct out of the tube, but it never did them justice. They become flat white shapes, showing no book or fluffiness.

I learned to expect for subtleties. Within a white cloud, there are hundreds of very fragile variations in value and color. Challenge your eyes to see them, and i day, simply similar magic, y'all will not be able to see white anymore. That's how it went for me. I call up it'due south all a affair of training our perception of color and values.

For practise, await at clouds through a minor hole on a neutral-colored piece of paper or a pinhole fabricated with your fist. Move the pigsty slightly and compare what you lot see on different sections of the same shape, this should help you come across subtle variations.

Question: For bluish sky and white clouds; generally speaking what color is your underpainting?

Respond: When toning a canvas, the play a joke on is to pick colors that make your job easier.

For a sunny-solar day sky painting, I would tone the sail with a warm color, to add warmth to the final painting. My become-to is probably raw sienna, a unproblematic and easy tone. However, I'd choose a color that somehow unifies sky and land, and then if I have orange elements on the landscape nether the heaven, I'd choice an orangish(ish) ground color.

It'south also a good idea to vary the toning color in dissimilar areas of the canvass to back up the variations in the last painting. So where the clouds are going to exist placed a lighter version of the color works well. If you are using oils, avert mixing white into the ground colors because it dries slowly and it would end up creating a chalky outcome on the next layers of pigment. Light information technology upward using a lighter/brighter yellow instead.

Another option for toning would be to embrace the canvas with a vivid version of the heaven color, maybe teal or cerulean blue. In this case, when you get to paint the heaven, you'll find that your job is already halfway done in several areas.

Question: What about when painting stormy skies? How can I take hold of the fury and magnificence of the sky right earlier a tempest?

Answer: Well, equally for whatsoever field of study, stormy clouds take shapes, darks, lights and a variety of hard and soft edges.

Notice closely the reference epitome, and commencement by create big shapes with strong value patterns by group darks and lights into bigger shapes.

Here are the rules of thumb that are good for any painting, including fury skies:

Connect darks together by eliminating small-scale and unimportant lighter shapes.

Create a dainty color diverseness, don't use gray out of a tube. (Stormy clouds are all shades of tedious regal, blue, and sometimes green or magenta.)

Keep changing slightly the color mix every few brushstrokes, but go along it in the aforementioned value family.

Don't worry about details and small defining strokes until the very end.

Question: I'm wanting to paint my small recessed porch ceiling every bit a sky with clouds. I'm trying to relate your instructions to that project only I'thousand having a trivial difficulty. How do I interpret the instructions from painting on canvas to painting on a ceiling??

Answer: That sounds like a wonderful project! I've never painted clouds on a ceiling, simply I would imagine all the same rules apply. The only difference is that to make the clouds "believable" y'all'll have to pigment them as you see them above y'all, not in front end of you.

For reference, have photos pointing the camera straight up. Besides, a lot of Cosmic churches have the ceiling painted with amazing scenes of angels and saints that appear to look downwardly from the clouds. You may want to expect upwardly church ceiling frescos for inspiration.

Question: What colour is the light of the sun in the flick?

Reply: The article has a few pictures, I'one thousand not sure which ane you lot are referring to.

Nonetheless, in the paintings past me (Robie Benve) the sunlight is in the yellowish range, with a hint of magenta. You can see that in the variations that get from the highlights to the deepest shadows in the clouds.

The first painting, the one with the title, is past Thomas Cooper Gotch and I don't see a lot of warm colors in the clouds, it looks like the color of the low-cal is cooler in that one. All the same, that might depend on hot that particular photo was taken and edited, I'm non sure if information technology reflects the true colors of the painting.

© 2016 Robie Benve

Robie Benve (author) from Ohio on July 20, 2020:

Hi Heather, unfortunately the sky, beingness very brilliant, often shows in photos equally an overexposed flat shape. If you are taking reference photos, one way to solve the problem is to take ane focusing on the nighttime parts (basis and vegetation) and another one focusing on the sky. The starting time photo will have a very light sky, the second volition have a very dark landscape. Together they give you the information you need.

When you are working from an existing photo, I recommend looking for a different sky reference, a photograph of a heaven that has similar characteristics to the original 1, that way y'all take consistency in lighting and shadows.

HeatherBellArt on July 19, 2020:

When working from a photo taken on a vivid day, the sky oftentimes appears white. How to handle that washed out heaven? Thanks!

Robie Benve (author) from Ohio on June 20, 2020:

That's wonderful to hear Charu! And then glad you found the motivation to paint by reading my commodity. Happy heaven painting!

Charu on June nineteen, 2020:

Hi ! Robbie

Later reading your tips I'1000 motivated to cease a skyscraper I abandoned in disappointment!

So thank you , (deep jiff) let's give it a become

Kenneth Avery from Hamilton, Alabama on July 17, 2019:

Hullo, Robie, y'all are very welcome. Honestly, i can chronicle to your disliking the "happy tree," considering in the paintings that he did about life in the mountains, the work would have stood by itself without the tree--but since he was the creator/painter, I kept this to myself.

Write me someday, Robie.

Robie Benve (writer) from Ohio on July 17, 2019:

Thanks a lot Kenneth!! Bob Ross had wonderful skills and amazing screen presence, I am not a big fan of the "happy tree" mode, but I actually adore what he was able to reach, especially his positive attitude and the huge amount of people that he inspired to pick up a brush and paint, that's phenomenal. Being compared to him is a huge award, thanks!!

Kenneth Avery from Hamilton, Alabama on July 16, 2019:

Robie...nice piece of work here. Very compelling and interesting. I call back beingness lost with that Mr. Ross, Bob? Who painted on PBS and ever put A Big tree smack dab into the middle of his work, simply oh my goodness, what a talent he had and so practice you lot.

Proceed up both, the painting and writing.

Kenneth

Robie Benve (author) from Ohio on July 14, 2019:

Cheers and so much for your comment Cheryl, I'g so happy to hear my commodity had such a positive effect. Happy painting!

Cheryl Swarthout on July 12, 2019:

I had an AHA! moment reading your helpful tips. Never before thought about linear perspective in painting skies. "Looking at the bottom of a table". Merely brilliant and this will help me then much. Thank you!

Beak Coady on April xx, 2019:

Very informative ! I painted my first clouds 3 weeks ago and take repainted my canvas panel at least 7 times and the clouds are becoming more "real" each fourth dimension ! It is actually an exhausting experience for a guy with congestive middle failure as I pigment 5 to 6 hours per day ; but really a happy fulfilling day ! Thanks much ! Nib Coady

Robie Benve (writer) from Ohio on April 02, 2019:

Thank you a lot Carrie! Your articles are amazing, so coming from you information technology really means a lot. :)

Carrie Kelley from Usa on April 02, 2019:

This is a slap-up article with valuable tips and observations. Beautiful artwork too! Thank you lot for posting it.

Robie Benve (author) from Ohio on March 22, 2019:

Hello Ruth, y'all are very welcome :) I had a similar experience when I start discovered atmospheric perspective, it'due south like my brain already had noticed it, just never really rationalized it, end then smash! the fading of colors, the lower contrast, etc. it all fabricated sense.

Ruth Willis on March eighteen, 2019:

Thanks for explaining atmospheric perspective, that really helped me! I merely knew of the perspective with the vanishing signal, now lots of more than things brand sense.

Amy Fisher on February 02, 2019:

As a mural artist I have struggled to get the colors and shapes right, it's above my head instead of on a canvas. I dear all your helpful hints mostly nigh the white, and the horizon, I have always gradated the heaven to lighter but I never thought to alter my clouds. Thanks for this wonderful gift, y'all are going to make my paintings amend. I'll never stop learning

Conti on October 13, 2018:

Cheers very much for the wonderful notes.

JK on Oct 03, 2018:

Thats some fantastic tips and it was super useful to me.

Robie Benve (writer) from Ohio on August 27, 2018:

Hi Tia, isn't it fascinating how we all struggle to get on canvass what nosotros see in our heads? I beloved that challenge. Every new painting I start I accept this amazing optimistic feeling that it's going to be the one finally perfect, and for every painting I finish I experience like "nope, not exactly what I had in mind, but I learned a lot from painting this, next painting I'll be able to render my vision." lol Happy painting.

Tia Stanway from Canada on Baronial 20, 2018:

Thanks for sharing these helpful tips. I had all only given upward on a sheet I have in the works of a prairie sky but this article has given me renewed motivation to keep at information technology. Thank you! I completely related to your annotate nearly how the clouds would look so different on sheet to how yous "painted" them in your caput. More practice on my part is definitely needed!

Katrinah on July 28, 2018:

I am kickoff painter. Thank you for all your tips.

Jj on July 27, 2018:

Thanks

Marcus on June thirty, 2018:

Overnice tips...

Robie Benve (author) from Ohio on June 30, 2018:

How wonderful to hear that afterwards reading my article you are inspired to pigment photos that have been on your saucepan listing for a while, and of clouds of all subjects! My favorite. :) Dive in, have fun, and enjoy every brushstroke! I hope you'll love the event. If non, just give information technology another attempt. Happy painting!

Karen Hellier from Georgia on June 26, 2018:

Wow, y'all are quite talented Robie. I dearest the cloud paintings you have included in this article. I have some photos I took of clouds off a cruise ship a few years ago and have e'er wanted to pigment them but didn't know where to start. These tips are wonderful and will really aid me. Thanks for the information.

Robie Benve (author) from Ohio on January 17, 2018:

Hi Charlotte, I would paint skies with whatever medium y'all are starting with. oil based, watermedia, or dry out medium, all tin can be used to paint any subject field. I started with acrylics, and evolved into oils subsequently, both are great. If you utilise acrylics, effort to create soft edges for the clouds by using thin glazes in layers or mixing paint at the edge while notwithstanding wet. Experiment and have fun. If you don't like the results at the first try, you tin always paint over and change it. :)

Charlotte on Jan xv, 2018:

What do you think a beginner should use for painting skies? Should I become for acrylics or oil?

Robie Benve (author) from Ohio on May xviii, 2016:

LOL RTalloni, that sounds so familiar! Beloved the positive attitude though, that's the only way to success :)

Skies are not an easy subject, that'south exactly why I attempt to share the little I know - hoping it might assist other artists. Focusing on those that plough out corking is the cardinal, I think. Sounds like you are doing dandy. Thank you a lot for your comment! And happy (or should I say heavenly) painting! :)

RTalloni on May xviii, 2016:

Thank you lot for sharing your feel and tips here. I'll be coming dorsum to read the details more than carefully because I still struggle with skies. 1 time my work turns out not bad, the next time I can merely shake my caput at the failure! I just say, "Oh well, maybe next time." :)

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