How to Paint Clouds and Skies with Watercolor

Watercolor painting is difficult enough all on its own, but there are some objects that people find particularly difficult to paint.  This post will hope to remedy that by showing you several videos that teach you how to paint believable clouds and skies with watercolors.  I found the videos below while searching this topic on YouTube and believe these to be the very best videos there on this topic  I do hope you find these landscape watercolor tips and techniques helpful.  Enjoy!

How To Paint A Blue Sky With Clouds in Watercolor

Watercolor Sky For Beginners -- How To Paint a Variegated Wash

How to Paint a Watercolor Sky with Wilson Bickford

Simple Skies in Watercolour

Terry Madden’s Watercolor Workshop Painting Easy Clouds

How to paint clouds the wet on wet way

Artist Spotlite – Kevin Bentley

Artist: Kevin bentley

Location: Nashville. Tenn

Title of Artwork: Lena Horne

Dimensions of Artwork: 19X26

Medium: Pastels

Website: http://www.bentleysportraits.org

Describe this Piece: This portrait is painted on velour with soft pastel

You Asked – Keeping Canvas Boards From Curling Up?

Today’s question comes from Cindy and she asks:

“How do you keep canvas boards from curling up ? I have several that I had in storage & recently took them out & some of them have curled up.”

Do you have any information that might help Cindy?

Please leave your response in the comment box below.  Thanks!

Tuscan Landscape – Acrylic Painting Tutorial By Julie Shoemaker

About Julie

I am a self taught artist who has been painting and interested in art all my life. My favorite medium is acrylic due to its versatility. One of my favorite things to do is teach painting to other people. I currently teach classes and we couldn’t have more fun if we tried. It’s just so gratifying to see the excitement on student’s faces when they see what they can accomplish with a little instruction and effort. When your ready to forget the theory and produce the art, visit http://www.IamPainting.org. Learn Painting Techniques and create your own remarkable portraits or landscapes.

Tuscan Landscape – Acrylic Painting Tutorial By Julie Shoemaker

Use whichever brush you feel comfortable with. I usually use a flat bristle brush for most of my work. And remember there is no right or wrong way to paint! If your painting doesn’t turn out like mine – then congratulations! You created a unique one of a kind painting.

Sky – First wet the sky area or top half of canvas with white gesso.

Then with a little yellow and a touch of orange added to the same brush, start at bottom of the sky area and work your way up. Use long horizontal strokes. Take the strokes right off the canvas while blending the yellows and orange into the white gesso as you work upward. Gently blend right up towards the top of canvas. Wipe the brush off with a paper towel.

Now add a touch of ultramarine blue and purple to the brush and start at the top of the canvas and work your way downward in the same fashion as you did the yellows.

The bottom part of the painting is under painted with any earth tone colors. Nothing fancy here!

Use sky colors (a mixture of white blue and purple) and paint in furthest hills – mountains. Notice how these hills show very little detail and are very soft looking.

Darken the mountain (sky) color and paint in next layer of hills. You want to make sure that you let some of the previous mountains show. Keep the tops interesting with some variations.

Add some earth tone to the very distant hills. You can use browns, tan, etc. Keep it dull though. Just add white to dull paint color. These are in the center of painting.

Add some hunter green and start dabbing or scrubbing in the bushes. This should be a dull green.

Landscapes typically get darker and more vivid as you work forward.

Lay in the foreground hills. (you will do the one the left first) Make this one lighter to look like sunlight is hitting it.

To do this start on the left of the painting and pull the paint brush into the center of the painting. Notice the slope of this hill. If you want you could add some rows of green for a field of crops look. (see next picture)

Now darken the mixture and add the hill on the right. Darken it with browns or tans. Too much green will make your picture look unnatural. This hill will be painted the same way but starting on the right side of the painting pulling the paint into the painting and overlapping the previous hill. Continue painting until the entire canvas is covered.

Don’t over blend! Let variations of color show.

Now start adding the tall trees.
If you are using a flat bristle brush, hold it on the side and dab on the paint in the shape of the tree.

In the background they will be duller – or lighter. The ones in the foreground are hunter green. Add purple to the paint to darken the side that will be in shadow.

Add some tree shadows to the ground.

Add one more foreground hill in the very front. The more layers – the more depth your painting will have

Add touches of reds or oranges for flowers, and some tiny shadows if you want to. Highlight the trees. (use yellow or light green and dab in brightness on the sun side of the trees)

You could easily be finished with your painting now, and let the dramatic tall tree shadows be the focus.

Or…Add some houses. Just draw in simple house shapes paint in the shapes with “dirty white “ and red for roofs. For shadows on the house, darken the roof color under the eaves. Dry brush in some white for highlights on the roof. Add a touch of orange for lights in the houses.

Add birds – Birds are just little v’s – Practice first and keep then dainty! and sign your painting….

Mixed Media Demonstration – Acrylic Paint and Collage

About Terry

Terry Honstead is an artist that enjoys using all kinds of media. Her favorite is acrylic collage, but watercolor collage and glass work are a close second! Feel free to check her work at: http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/terry-honstead.html or email her at honstead@paulbunyan.net. She doesn’t have a website at this moment, but it is in the works. She lives and works as a full time artist in Bemidji, MN.

Acrylic Collage Demonstration

Step One

I am using Multimedia Artboard for this piece. I started out finding some pictures and papers that I wanted to use. The diamond pattern, the stripes, and the snake pattern came from tissue paper that I found. I added some musical notes from a music book with a copyright from the early 1900’s. The pictures were from some I found in the public domain. I cut what I wanted and “glued” them onto my 18 x 24 Artboard. I also use watercolor paper and canvas at times. Any of them will work. I glue the papers on with matte medium if they are very lightweight (like the tissue) or with soft gel gloss if they are heavier (like the paper with grass in it ). Then you need to let your paper dry. I usually dry mine over night so as to be sure it is very dry!

Step Two

After coming back to my painting, I first put on some acrylic glazes over the whole page. ( here I used Sap Green Hue, Quinacridone Crimson, and Quinacridone / Nickel Azo Gold) When the glazes were dry (you can dry them with a hair dryer), I added some thicker paint with a large piece of cork with the green (the cork is about 3 1/2 in. in diameter. I also used a small wine cork for the smaller circles. I applied Violet Oxide with a pallet knife on top of a piece of gridded plastic. and removed the plastic right away. Be sure to wash the plastic immediately after using it on one spot, and before you put it in another spot. You can use other found objects to stamp paint or use as a stencil. I often use things such as card board, bubble wrap, plastic wrap, gauze, etc. At this point, I decided to put some found objects on the papers to add more texture. I used gauze, skeleton leaves, and eyelash yarn. Again I let it dry over night

Step Three

I decided that I didn’t like the bright red colors (the Alizarin Crimson) of the painting so I put white gesso over some parts of the painting to tone it down. Once that was dry, I put a glaze over the whole painting with Quinacridone/ Nickle Azo Gold.

Step Four

Once the gold glaze was dry, I did add some spots of violet oxide with my pallet knife on various areas to bring out that color some more. Next I had to decide what the subject of my painting was going to be. I decided on a mother and baby giraffe. I tried to draw it on, but found I could not see the picture at all, so I drew it on with white paint instead. I also put in the black for the eyes and nostrils. When “drawing” this onto the painting, I used some of my found objects that were three dimensional, to use as parts of the drawing. (See the dark line of the mother’s mouth)

Step Five

Next, I used Titan Buff to tone down the white of the areas between the spots. Also begin to use Raw Umber along the outside of the animals so as to differentiate the animals from the background, fading it as you go further from the animals.

Step Six

Continue to darken the outside and build up the colors in the animals

Step Seven

I decided I needed to add some color to the background to help differentiate it. I put several glazes of Turquoise (Phthalo), while still continuing to add more details to the giraffes

Step Eight

Continue to darken and add details until you are satisfied with the result. Don’t forget to sign your painting.

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