Painting Demonstration 1
I begin with ultramarine blue with a dash of cobalt. I'm painting wet brush onto dry paper. Clouds are shaped mostly by their edges, so I want some texture there.
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Painting Demonstration 2
I keep painting bold dashes of ultramarine, cobalt, ultramarine pink and start dashing in bits of quinacridone gold. I don't want the sky to turn green, so each gold dash needs to be quickly done and not mixed.
Painting Demonstration 3
I love the combination of ultramarine pink and quinacridone gold pigments. When they mix, they do some fabulous textures!
Artist Tips
Paint everything bolder than the color you want it to dry to.
Painting Demonstration 4
I'm still painting deep, bold colors. I plan to soften some of the edges with scrubbing and pull out pigment in areas, so I can be as bold as I want to be.
The dashes of cobalt teal push the background further back and light it up. Plus, it's more great texture!
Painting Demonstration 5
The ultramarine violet fades tremendously as it dries. I light up some of the cloud edges with quinacridone gold. Notice the play of cool and warm colors. There's a lot of warms in a blue sky!
The cobalt teal is a warm pigment against the ultramarine blue, refocusing the focal point.
Painting Demonstration 6
Now some strong darks right before I scrub on a few areas to soften them.
If the painting is still wet, it will make a muddy mess!
Final Watercolor Sketch!
This was a nice, fun sketch to paint. I love going very bold on a soft, amorphous light shape like the cloud, then scrubbing out pigment to soften it. It changes it to a soft texture without the blob effect of wet into wet.
Skies are always changing so they're wonderful things to paint. Even on overcast days, there are usually beautiful and inspiring.
The biggest challenge in painting a sky is the lack of focus. You can sharpen areas, blur areas, change warmth and coolness. Or you can just make it easy by throwing in a mountain range or tree. Either way, I always learn something by painting a sky.
I hope this inspires you to go paint some skies!
