When sketching a composition that includes clouds, you need to decide how large a part they will take up in the final version. Do you just want to dilute the monochromatic sky with them, or have you decided to highlight the clouds and draw them in detail? Once the decision is made, follow these step-by-step instructions.
We will focus on cumulus clouds, which are most often encountered in the works. Cumulus clouds have the most in different forms, they are dense and can be snow-white or menacingly dark. Below are three examples of images of cumulus clouds.
1. Wide and vague cloud
A cumulus cloud is usually voluminous; blue pieces of the sky are visible through it. It is dense, not as thin as feather, and the most different sizes, so it’s interesting to draw him. To create it, you need to depict several torn pieces of the sky.
Step 1
To keep it simple, I used a plain white sheet of watercolor paper and one color - blue. Start with sketches of “holes” torn at the edges - the sky peeking through the clouds. Do not press down on the pencil so that the lines can be hidden as you draw or erased with an eraser.
Wet the paper, including the areas you just drew. Apply with light strokes blue paint to "holes".
Leave the piece of paper (or at least the part with the sky) to dry for half an hour.
Step 2
Believe it or not, you are already one step away from the final result! Add more blue paint to the areas drawn in step 1. While the paper was drying, Blue colour probably overlapped the outline made in pencil. This is good! This will make the clouds look natural.
Another uneven layer of blue on wet paper will spread in some places and remain in others. This is the effect we need.
Brighten the color here and there and enjoy the end result.
2. Volume cloud
Such cumulus clouds are most often drawn. It is in them, smoothly gliding across the sky, that we try to discern familiar outlines. The good news is that these clouds are very easy to draw.
Step 1
Draw a curved round or oval shape. Since working on children's books, I have been making the edges of the clouds sharp, as in the example below. Do not draw thick lines, just make a sketch that can be easily erased if something happens.
Inside the cloud, draw several hill-like lines.
Step 2
Wet the area outside the cloud, leaving the cloud itself completely dry. Paint over the sky.
Step 3
Start working on the cloud when the sky is completely dry. For an effect of depth, highlight the convex parts of the cloud with gray shades (#1 in the image below).
Wet the area bordering the cloud "hills" and make grey colour richer. Blend the edges with a brush (#2 in the picture below).
3. Spectacular cloud
Such clouds appear when the weather changes. When creating a cumulus cloud, it is important to remember the dense white areas, especially in fluffy and undulating clouds.
Step 1
Draw the outline of the cloud as in the previous example. This time, place the bumps one on top of the other and add “hills” both inside the cloud and along its edges.
Step 2
Wet the whole sky. You can wet the cloud itself a little, this will make the work more interesting and make the cloud look spectacular (#1 in the picture below).
In the process of creating volume, I saturated the color on the tops of the hills. This is another way to achieve a 3D effect.
2 ways to depict a cirrus cloud
Cirrus clouds indicate good weather and are light and high in the sky. Cirrus clouds are pockmarked and hazy white, similar to marble and sea wave. They can be drawn in two ways.
Blue on white
Wet the sky area and apply a few swirls of blue. Leave the paper to dry and highlight the curls again. Repeat the process a third time. This way the color will get a volume effect and the edges will be soft. Areas with sharp edges will fit perfectly into the final painting, so don't worry if the paper dries unevenly.
White on blue
Using this method, you apply materials to the finished blue sky.
The picture below shows a sky I made. I painted it, let it dry, mixed white gouache with a little water and made a couple of light strokes with it. Once again, wet the brush and soften the too sharp edges - and the drawing is ready! You can even use white pastel.
Use as many materials as possible
My cloud making instructions will work with other materials as well. I give an example of a three-dimensional cumulus cloud made with coal.
I painted the sky and cloud shadows with horizontal strokes, varying the pressure to create light and shadow.
Even the most ordinary clouds can become the heroes of an illustration that will delight you.
Here are the clouds I got as a result of trying to draw step by step.
Did new series stages of drawing clouds. This time I specifically sat down to draw a work that will serve for demonstration purposes and will try to tell what and how I do while drawing clouds.
I want to say right away that the quality of work is greatly influenced by such important things as experience and practice. With a lot of practice, solutions to questions and problems are often found on their own. With experience comes confidence and courage in drawing, the belief that you can achieve what needs to be depicted.
Perhaps, and most likely, without experience in drawing clouds, and I have drawn enough of them, I would not have been able to draw a version of the landscape that pleases me using this lesson. You just need to draw and enjoy your achievements, which will give you new strength and the desire to move on.
About the tools
Brush
I used this brush 99% of the time. I have it the same everywhere here.
Enabled dependence of transparency on the degree of pen pressure tablet. I hope you have a tablet, because without it there is no way to draw on a computer) In the picture above it is marked with a red circle.
The size of the brush does not change depending on the degree of pressure. All.
Hotkeys
1. F– I switch Photoshop to a mode where you can drag the canvas with the “Hand” tool, even though it’s not to scale. Try pressing F and dragging the canvas by clicking on it and holding down Spacebar. If it doesn't work, click again.
It’s a small thing, but it helps to pull the canvas onto the surface next to the layers panel, and not behind it.
2. Space. I think you know, by holding down the spacebar, it appears fast hand, which can again stretch the canvas. I use it all the time
3. On the buttons W And S prescribed enlargement and reduction of the hand. In I described how to do this.
4. Alt– by holding this button, the brush goes into eyedropper mode and when you poke it on the canvas, the new selected color is selected. A very important button. My entire technique for drawing clouds is based on it.
Technique
In the demo picture below I will try to demonstrate exactly how I use it.
For simplicity, 2 colors. The color of the sky and clouds. As a rule, I start with a couple of colors and add the rest later. Same thing in this demo lesson.
1. I drew a cloud.
2. Using the eyedropper (Alt) to select the color of the sky, I begin to draw jagged edges, creating random smears with different pen pressure and, accordingly, transparency.
3. Again I select the neighboring color and outline the edges with a different color. Thus, by adjusting the shape, an interesting effect of cloud liveliness and airiness is obtained.
1. Initial form
It was described above how the initial shape of the cloud is drawn. The subsequent stages of drawing in the same way are just a different color and shade.
2. Add a new shade
I love yellow light color. I'll add it. I will outline the edges of the cloud, mostly to the left, signaling that the sun is falling on them from the left.
You can and should do more with shade. I limited myself to 3 so as not to complicate the lesson.
3. Adding light to the clouds
I like to add layers of color to the illuminated and not-so-lit areas of the painting by changing the blending mode. IN in this case It's set to "Hard Light". I will always try everything before I decide. I press blending mode in the layers panel and scroll with the up/down buttons on the keyboard, observing the effect. If it gets tired, I leave it.
Here I wanted to achieve the illumination and color of the cloud.
4. Outlining the new light superimposed by the previous mixed layer.
Using a basic technique, I outline transitions from one color to another and create sharp boundaries in some places, and smooth ones in others.
5. More information, getting rid of empty areas.
Often at a certain stage of drawing, when you already have something and don’t know where to move next, 3 things save you.
1. Flip the canvas horizontally.
Image – Rotate Image – Flip canvas horizontally. The closer eye begins to perceive the picture, noticing the shoals that were blurred during prolonged work.
2. Convert to black and white.
Why is this needed? When the picture is black and white, it is easy to determine whether the picture is of interest. If there are only shades of gray or too light/dark, then this picture is difficult to perceive. Need to so that in the picture there are also light And dark And average plots.
I create a new layer and fill it monochromatic color(Black, grey, white) key combination Ctrl + Backspace and change the blending mode to Chroma(Color). Thus, the canvas is painted in black and white color. This change can be disabled by turning off the layer's visibility.
3. Empty areas
The presence of even areas of the same color is also a negative point, which passes off your work as a flaw, moving further and further from a true illustration describing something real or plausible. Well, what if it's cloudless blue sky, then you should make it gradient.
More light
And I added another light smeared spot on a new layer with the “Brightness” blending mode. All these adjustments were made as a result of analyzing what happens, what you like and what you don’t like, so I think you understand that it makes no sense to repeat the process point by point. You will get one thing differently, you will like another more than I do.
I will say that the main thing is to feel local victories in your paintings and drawings. If there are successes, even small ones, it moves you forward and mainly gives you hope for even greater success in the future.
Good luck and success in drawing!
This is quite a difficult lesson, so it may take you quite a lot of effort to repeat it. If you didn’t succeed in drawing the clouds the first time, don’t despair and try again. Try your best to complete this lesson. If it still doesn’t work out, you can try to complete the lesson “”. But I believe that you will succeed.
What you will need
In order to draw clouds we may need:
- You need Photoshop program.
- A little patience.
- Good mood.
Step by step lesson
Natural phenomena are quite difficult to draw. That is, drawing them is not difficult, but achieving realism is much more difficult. I always recommend looking at the original to get the most accurate copy of what you are about to draw. In the Yandex image search, just search for “clouds in the photo” to get a large number of the required material.
By the way, in addition to this lesson, I advise you to pay attention to the lesson “”. It will help improve your skill or just give you a little fun.
Advice: do it different actions on different layers. The more layers you make, the easier it will be for you to manage the drawing. So the sketch can be made on the bottom layer, and the white version on the top, and when the sketch is not needed, you can simply turn off the visibility of this layer.
As you complete this tutorial, please note that due to differences in software versions, some menu items and tools may have different names or be missing altogether. This may make the tutorial a little difficult, but I think you can do it.
So, first, create a new document, fill it with a blue gradient. Let's make a sketch. The image below is a sketch of a cloud painted with a soft brush. As you can see, the light is indicated immediately.
Next, I changed the soft brush to a harder one. Marked the edges of the clouds. Remember that they are illuminated from above, so the color should be dazzling white, and draw darker contours from below, since this is the shadowed side of the cloud. Work carefully, try to draw with soft transitions.
Now we need to get rid of the big white spot in the center of the cloud. You might think that there is no point in erasing it, because we will put other objects on top of it anyway, but I believe that there should be order in everything. I'll also darken the bottom of the cloud a little. So, after some changes, our drawing should look like this:
Remember that such clouds can only be created in a certain position, because it is then that the light, shadows and angle will be positioned correctly. So, below is a diagram of the correct position of the gaze, clouds and sun.
If you want a different arrangement of objects (the top right picture shows you the case of the position of the clouds between the view and the sun), then your drawing should look like the picture below. Most of the same cloud (that faces the viewer) will be in shadow. So, when drawing the cloud in this position, we will use more dark colors, and only along the edges, on the sunny side, will we add blue.
We continue to work with this cloud. Now we'll add some detail and light up some parts of the clouds that probably aren't large enough to create a deep shadow.
Creating these clouds took me only ten minutes and I only used two types of brushes. One brush is soft, and the other is hard, like a cloud or dissipating smoke. To do this, I did a little work in the Brush Preset and changed some parameters (you can see them in the pictures below). Once you've learned how to create this brush, you'll be able to create some pretty beautiful objects.
So, now we will try to use the resulting brushes in our works. First, we will need some pictures that can be found on the Internet (references). I found some photos of clouds taken from above (probably from a window). Anyone who has flown on airplanes has a rough idea of what clouds look like. My choice fell on certain photographs: clouds illuminated with bright white light.
So I studied the structure and shape of the clouds. Now I have a rough idea of the location of objects in the painting: clouds will stretch along the entire length, on the right they will dissipate slightly, stretching towards the distant horizon. Like that:
Now I have slightly changed the contrast and saturation of the picture. I drew and added small clouds. You must realize that all clouds cast shadows both behind them and below them. I show the air currents by lifting some of the clouds. So now your picture looks like this:
Again I had to add more contrast and saturation. So, now the bulk of the clouds begins to acquire a realistic, beautiful view. Although it requires some improvement.
It's time to add depth and a "cosmic" feeling to the drawing. It is now necessary to concentrate on the clouds located on background, add some details to the main clouds. Air currents create not only clouds, but also “chasms” in them. To show these holes I used a rich blue color. Lowered the opacity of the layer with small background clouds. Because I want to give the nebula to the picture, as it happens at large distances.
When you draw something or someone for a long enough time, the feeling of soberly assessing the picture and finding mistakes becomes dull. Therefore, when the picture is ready, call someone to soberly assess the situation and help you find errors.
So my painting is finished. The clouds look realistic and exciting, giving the viewer the impression of flying. And this is exactly what I was striving for. About three hours were spent on this work.
I sincerely hope that you enjoyed the lesson on how to draw clouds and hope that you were able to repeat the lesson. Now you can pay attention to the lesson “” - it is just as interesting and exciting. Share this lesson with your friends on social media. networks.
This lesson will cover the technique of drawing the sky and clouds with a pencil; at the very end there will be a video with the same technique for a more visual understanding of how and what.
Look at the three images below. First image. It shows a very sharp transition between sky, earth and barn. There's just some space left here.
This is the second image. It's much better because of the added sky tone.
The third image includes a tinted sky and clouds. Clouds add depth to the scene.
There are different types of clouds: cirrus, stratus, cumulus, transitional between these clouds, rain, etc.
This is a very specific list of materials that I use. Of course you may have other tools. Experiment to find it own style drawing. Pencils F (a pencil with a softness between HB and B) and 2H with a 0.5 mm mechanical core, a piece of suede (material), Tortillon (shading pencil) - small (you can simply roll up the paper so that there is a pointed tip), Blu-Tack ( nag), small ruler, Strathmore 300 Series Bristol Board, makeup brushes.
Step 1. Do some shading to create tone. I use a free hand position, only the hand works. I did the shading in three layers with an F pencil, 1 layer horizontally, the other two diagonally.
Step 2. Now rub the painted tone with a rag (suede) wrapped around your finger. Do this several times to achieve a smooth tone. Make sure to rub everything around the edges, as well as buildings, trees and the horizon.
Try not to touch the surface of the paper with your fingers. It is during mixing that fingerprints appear. Once they do appear it is very difficult to fix (unless they ended up in a cloud formation) and many times you will just have to start over again! I'll add 2 more layers of shading with a 2H pencil and blend again. This creates a nice smooth surface. Use a ruler and eraser to make the edges on the sides even.
Step 3. Now use the eraser to create clouds. For light thin lines in the clouds, I use a knob and just drag it across the entire surface.
Step 4: Using a 2H pencil, create a dark transition next to the white tops of the clouds. Use a blending pencil in these areas. Apply new tones, shade, shade, erase to achieve the appearance of clouds on paper. To soften the edges of the clouds, use a nag. Remember that if the focal point of your painting isn't clouds, they shouldn't compete with the rest of the landscape. I typically use wisps of light and hints of clouds in most of my landscapes. I usually spend 5-8 hours just painting the sky and clouds. Patience is key in creating a good palate.
Here is an example of the evening sky.
Now you can watch how to draw the sky and clouds in a video from another author.
These are the clouds we will now create:
How to draw clouds in Photoshop
1. So, let's create a new document. Size doesn't matter at all. Select the Gradient Tool, click on the gradient strip in the top panel, and the gradient settings window opens. Here we need to select the colors of the sky, I used these:
2. Fill the canvas with this gradient from top to bottom:
We get something like this:
3. Now let's move on to drawing the clouds. Select the Brush Tool and press F5 to bring up the brush settings. Take a regular soft brush and set it up as follows:
Thus we created special brush, which we will now use to draw clouds.
4. Create a new layer, set the brush opacity to 50% and sketch out the outline of the cloud, with the new brush it should take you 5 seconds:
5. Now it’s just a matter of technique, consistently creating layers and from time to time using the hardness of the brush (the edges of the clouds are uneven, and there are both quite sharp and very airy) and shades of gray and light blue, draw something similar.