How to draw the sky with a pencil. Drawing clouds

Today we will talk about how to draw clouds with a pencil. It’s difficult, I’ll say right away, but the result is worth the effort and time. I will tell you how to convey emotions in a picture, and of course I will show you step by step using one example. Let's take this picture: Cloud - unexplained phenomenon, originating from smoke and dust, creating the atmosphere on planet Earth and in the souls of people. How can the atmosphere influence people's souls? Well, for example:

Rain clouds make you sad;
Cumulonimbus - waiting;
Layered gray or white - calm;
Layered foggy - melancholy;
Cirrostratus - hope;
Fluffy - peace on the planet;
Tough and clumsy - the galaxy is in danger;
Blue, yellow color– joy, childhood;
Dark, blue, gray color is a harbinger of something bad;

Color and shape convey the emotions of the artist, the emotions of the painting. Be extremely careful when depicting clouds in your painting. The author's vision does not always coincide with the vision of mere mortals. Hence it turns out: the artist sees it this way. What I described above are my personal associations with clouds. Perhaps you have a different opinion. This is fine. I wanted to show youth, calmness, gentleness and serenity in the picture. I hope you will see all this in the lesson:

How to draw clouds with a pencil step by step

Step one. Let's draw a horizon line, using circles we will show the clouds, the girl and in the background a forest, a lighthouse, and islands.
Step two. Using smaller circles we will show fluffy clouds. Let's draw the girl and the background in more detail.
Step three. Now slowly draw the clouds with light strokes. Let's add vegetation in the background and seagulls in the foreground.
Step four. We add shadows using shading for realism and create beauty.
If you don't succeed the first time, don't worry. Worth trying again! Better yet, attach your work under this article and comment on the work of other readers. Let's look for mistakes together and correct them! And try to portray it again.

There is an opinion that there are two large expanses of water on our planet: the ocean under our feet and the ocean above our heads. The second one fell to the ground back in the time of Noah with his ark, which could only accommodate a couple of creatures, and flooded everything. Well, then it calmed down and calmly hovers somewhere in the atmosphere. This lesson will show you how to draw the sky with a pencil. Yes, the task is difficult, but we'll see what we can do. (here you can click on the picture and see big size, if you want to draw in more detail) The sky is a formation of predominantly blue or black color, the place of residence of gods, stars and flying birds. Used to move flying objects in space. There is no clear definition of where the sky begins or ends, but if you climb a few meters above it, you will find yourself in a very maudlin melodrama. This definition appeared with the release documentary film about a space called Three meters above the sky. Until now, science believed that after the sky begins an airless space called space. No matter how it is. If you dig deeper, it turns out that crowds must live in heaven dead people led by the Almighty. But pilots and astronauts never confirmed this. Also in blue ocean are formed very poorly blue clouds, which carry a lot of moisture, electricity and loud bass, and thanks to weather stations they always come suddenly. What else do I know about the sky:

You can point your finger at the sky. This is what they say when a person tries to guess a thing, for example, a PIN code for a found phone, or a ticket number for an exam;
There are holes in it - ozone holes. Falls into them sunlight with such speed that, falling on a person’s head, it can kill him, or fry him, giving him a good tan;
In fact, the sky has no color. It's a matter of structure human eyes who do not perceive color adequately. I wonder what else is wrong with him;
For a long time in ancient times, people feared that, sooner or later, the sky would fall on their heads and strangle them. And this is understandable, because science claims that its weight is approximately 5,300,000,000,000,000 tons;

Of course, it is not going to fall (at least for now). But it will serve as good raw material for our creativity. And so let's get down to business.

How to draw the sky with a pencil step by step

Step one. Draw several circles that will turn into clouds.
Step two. Making the clouds more wavy and fluffy.
Step three. We outline the drawing with a thicker line.
Step four. Let's draw some earth under the sky and shade the clouds.
Well, that’s how it happened. You can color with colored pencils or paints. Would you like lessons in drawing other landscapes? I recommend you try it.

Start by looking to the sky

Ever since an artist friend suggested that I include the sky in one of my paintings, I have often had my head in the clouds. I am constantly amazed by the beauty of the sky, which we often do not notice. Over the past few years I have been studying the importance of shading skies and adding clouds to compositionally enhance landscapes. It seems to me that I could spend hours fiddling with every fluff of snow-white clouds!

Take a closer look at the sky and the variety of clouds. Take pictures of clouds and you will be amazed at how much you will begin to “see”!

The role of the sky in the picture

Is it important to include the sky in a painting? There are no clouds in the sky at all - why should I shade it? I’m also used to thinking this way, and so are many of my early works do not contain tinted skies. For a long time I did not “see” the tone in the sky. It was only recently that I realized the impact of tinted skies in a landscape. Here are a few benefits of tinted skies:

It expands the range of tones of the picture. The white part of the paper can now only represent bright hues Images.
Creates uniformity in the composition of the painting
Gives the landscape additional realism.
Gives atmosphere and sets the mood of the landscape.

The following picture demonstrates the importance of a tinted sky and why the sky/clouds need to be viewed in general composition any landscape.

In this series of drawings I chose a very simple landscape with a white barn. The only variable in the three figures is the inclusion of sky and clouds.

There is no sky in the first picture. The picture seems numb, and the sky (the whiteness of the paper) rivals the whiteness of the barn.

The second drawing looks better thanks to the addition of the tinted sky. The white barn is now the focal point as the sky highlights and highlights the entire scene much better.

The third picture combines the tinted sky with clouds. The clouds add depth to the scene because they are distant from the viewer. Clouds also provide visual direction to the viewer. They guide the eye around the painting and create visual interest.

Cloud Formation and Cloud Types

Stratus clouds - thin, smoky, light-colored clouds
Cumulus clouds - white, puffy, fluffy
Rain clouds and storm front
Silhouette clouds - backlit

Adviсe:

The sky should be lighter at horizon level and darker at the top.
Clouds are subject to perspective - the further away they are, the smaller they are.
If the sky is not the central part of the design, light, smoky, understated clouds work best.
Use clouds to guide the viewer's eye across the landscape
Clouds have shape and three dimensions, they just don't have distinct angles.
Thunderclouds should have a darker base

Drawing supplies:

This sample list accessories. Some items can, of course, be replaced. To adapt these techniques to your drawing style, you need to experiment.

.5mm mechanical pencil F and 2H
Suede
Small shading
Office plasticine
White eraser
Small ruler
Strathmore 300 Series Bristol Board
Makeup Brush

We draw the sky with clouds in 4 stages:

Stage 1 - Cross Hatching

I use a loose, relaxed hand position when I draw cross-hatching. The very weight of the pencil on the paper will create the desired strokes - light and uniform.

I apply three layers of graphite shading onto the paper using a pencil with an F tip. The first layer is applied horizontally to the surface, and the next two are applied diagonally.

Stage 2 - Smoothing

With suede wrapped around index finger, I smooth the graphite. Movements should be firm, with pressure. Several passes of chamois may be needed for a smooth, even tone. Make sure that the edges and areas around buildings, trees and horizontal areas are smoothed. It will be much easier to erase something later than to add the missing area.

Avoid touching the surface with your fingers. It is at this stage that smudges and fingerprints magically appear. They can be very difficult to remove later and often you have to start over.

I then add two more layers of shading with a 2H pencil and smooth everything out again with chamois. So we get good smooth surface. I clean up the edges of the drawing using a ruler and eraser.

Stage 3 - Creating Clouds

I use a beveled eraser and use it to “draw” clouds in the sky. For light, smoky clouds, I use office plasticine and simply drag it across the surface.

STAGE 4 - Drawing details

Next we use a 2H pencil to darken the dark areas next to the white tops of the clouds. Feathering is used to smooth out and work on details. By erasing, highlighting, and layering graphite, clouds are formed on paper.

Office plasticine is suitable for softening clouds. To make the clouds stand out better, you need to darken the background sky. This allows the puffy white clouds to fully form. Don't forget that if the clouds are not the central focus of the picture, they should not compete with the rest of the landscape. They should be gentle, sophisticated and gently guide the viewer's gaze around the stage. Typically I use light hazy clouds and small cumulus clouds in my landscapes.

So, if you want to learn how to draw the sky masterfully, you should pay attention to the following points:

The importance of soft edges
Colored gray shades highlight the brightest parts of the picture
Aerial perspective
There is no pure white in the sky
Don't become a hostage to photography
Use large brushes
Most light shade even lighter than it seems
Thick layers of paint and glaze
Linear perspective in the clouds
Depicting clouds as solid objects

1. On the importance of soft edges and boundaries in the sky

When you're painting the sky, it's very important to keep the edges in mind. In all of nature you will not find other soft intersecting boundaries like some clouds.

It is also important to remember the balance between hard and soft edges. This will help you adjust the volume and transparency of the clouds.

Some clouds are so thin that the sky can be seen through them. To emphasize them, add the color of the sky to the color of the cloud, soften the edges of the cloud itself and the gaps in it.

In addition, the sky gradually changes its color towards the horizon. Use glazing and mixing shades to correctly draw such a transition.

An example of soft and clear cloud contours. Fragment of Robie Benve’s painting “Much Needed”.

2. Colored gray shades highlight the brightest parts of the picture.

I love you very much bright colors, appearing during sunsets. But at the same time, I know that a lot of intense shades are not very good for painting. To highlight the brightest and most saturated areas of your painting, you will need to add a few neutral, perhaps even “dirty” shades to your work.

You need “dirty” colors to make bright colors sound louder. A range of gray shades are a great complement to a colorful sky. Bright orange will look even brighter when placed next to gray.

Talking about gray color, I do not at all mean a shade obtained by mixing black and white, and of course we are not talking about a ready-made gray color from tubes or ditches. I like gray shades, which are obtained by mixing the colors that remain on the palette after painting the clouds, sky and other objects in the picture.

3. Aerial perspective

Looking into the distance, you can see how the colors and shades in the sky and on the ground gradually change. This is due to the air atmosphere effect.

The greater the distance between us and the object, the more pronounced this effect is.

Look at the landscape stretching to the horizon and notice the following:

the further away the objects of the landscape are, the lighter and faded they are; the closer they are to us, the more saturated their color becomes;
in the distance the colors of objects become cold, while in the foreground there are warm shades;
As you move towards the horizon, the contrasts smooth out and become less noticeable.

This is true both for painting vegetation and for working on the sky.

Remember one more important point: the sky above us is always darker, but becomes lighter towards the horizon.

Observe, explore the clouds as often as you can. This will help you draw them better.

4. The sky is not pure white.

The color of the light affects all other colors. I used to use White color to draw the tops of sunlit clouds. Later I realized that the color of the clouds also depends on the lighting. There are no pure white areas in the sky.

Since then I have been mixing white with yellow, purple, violet or blue flowers depending on weather conditions and cloud cover. The very least I can do is add a little orange to the white to make it warmer.

I use zinc white for mixing the main shades and titanium for those shades that I will use in the most lit areas. I do this because titanium white is less translucent and tends to overshadow other shades, while zinc white is more transparent and allows me more control when mixing the paints to achieve the desired shade.

Robie Benve “Glimpse”

5. Don't become a hostage to photography.

If you draw from a photograph, do not be afraid to abandon certain elements in the photo that will not decorate the composition of your future work. It may be a good idea to, for example, adjust the cloud line or move trees, blur the shoreline, etc.

Give yourself permission to make changes that will make your painting more interesting. After all, your work won't hang next to the original photo, and no one will know what the shape of that cloud actually was or whether all the trees were the same size.

When drawing from a photo, it is important to remember one more thing: the camera changes color relationships. Dark areas look darker in the photo, and shadows lose a lot of detail. In fact, even in the shadows we can observe a sufficient amount of color, different color variations.

6. Use Large Brushes

I thought I was painting with good, appropriately sized brushes. However, I continued to feel dissatisfied with my work. They did not feel light, they seemed overloaded with details, overworked. Then I realized that I needed larger brushes.

Use the largest size brushes at the beginning of your painting and change them to smaller ones towards completion.

Think in large forms, sections, and only at the very end move on to detail. Move from the general to the specific.

Continue using your brushes throughout your painting. bigger size than the ones you are used to. Pick up the brush, then put it back and pick up another one, a size or two larger.

Add details at the very end, but don't go overboard.

7. The lightest shade is even lighter than it seems

This is another one important point, which took me a lot of time to realize at the very beginning. Yellow is light color, So? Then why doesn't the yellow sky at my sunset look bright enough?

While checking my drawing and photograph using a tone scale, I noticed that the light shades I had chosen were much darker than I thought.

We are talking about the difference in the perception of color when we mix it on the palette and then add it to the picture.

The perception of a color shade also depends on what surrounds it. For example, it may appear warm on the palette, but after we add the shade to the canvas, it begins to appear cooler.

I find myself usually mixing up some paint and testing it on the canvas to see if it's the shade I'm looking for.

As experience shows, even if you paint a foggy day, the sky will remain the brightest area in your picture.

Tip: If you want to get some light shade, take white paint and add the colors you want little by little. It is easier to darken a color than to lighten it.

Tone scale

When looking at clouds, try to immediately pay attention to how they change as they go into the distance (in perspective), color, size, light, etc.

The photo shows a beautiful cloudy day.

8. Thick layers of paint and glaze

The sky is woven from air, steam, particles.

I like to start painting with thin transparent layers. At the very beginning of my work I divorce acrylic paints with water, and oil-based ones with an odorless diluent. After this, I begin to apply paint to the canvas, controlling the density of the layer, lightening or darkening individual areas depending on the object being depicted.

Initial work with dark and light areas allows me to organize and think through the composition of the painting. I always start with this approach, it concerns both the sky and any objects on earth.

After the preliminary underpainting is ready, I continue to work with layers, adding them in the places I need in the picture. I have found that dark areas look better if I add thinner to the solution before starting work. necessary colors and shades.

I apply the paint more thickly to those areas of the clouds that are closer to the viewer, and I want to emphasize their outlines.

Sometimes there are also such light clouds, tousled by the wind.

Robie Benve “Featherlike”

9. Linear perspective in the clouds

Lines and proportions in the sky are subject to the same rules and laws of perspective that apply to objects on earth, with vanishing points and lines leading to them.

If you look at clouds from an airplane, you see them floating parallel to the ground.

If you look at the clouds from the ground, you can easily imagine that they are like the top of a table, and we are under it.

Clouds get smaller as you approach the vanishing point, just like any other object when it comes to linear perspective.

10. Depicting clouds as solid objects

You may find it easier to draw clouds if you think of them as solid objects. Although they have jagged, jagged edges and are transparent, imagine them as geometric shapes– parallelepipeds or cubes.

This approach will help you understand how to correctly distribute areas of light and shadow on a cloud.

Make a preliminary sketch on a separate sheet of paper, imagining the clouds in the form of connecting cubes. Analyze where the light falls, which areas are in the shadow and penumbra, where the reflex is located.

Once you start working directly on the painting itself, look at your sketch from time to time. Don't forget to round and smooth the edges of the clouds to give them a nice, interesting shape.

Only by observing clouds, studying their dynamics, how they appear and change, can you learn to draw them masterfully.

I can spend hours looking at the sky and the ever-changing clouds. I especially like sunsets. They bring me quiet joy.

Because of my emotional attachment to them and the visual pleasure of contemplating them, several years ago I began to pay special attention to the sky in my paintings.

At first I was horrified by my painting. Painted on canvas, the clouds never looked the way I imagined them in my mind. They seemed very childish, amateurish.

But I continued to practice. I started looking into drawing books and reading chapters on the sky and clouds, and watching videos on this topic.

Self-study and practice in sky painting improved my skill over time.Every picture teaches you something new!

I don’t stop there and continue to work and develop further - I read art magazines and articles, watch master classes and educational videos, and of course I continue to draw a lot. This helps me understand which techniques work and which don't.

How to paint the sky with watercolors?

After all, there must be a completely different technical approach to mixing paints and stages of work!

Learn the basics of watercolor paintingwith a popular rate

This is an average difficulty lesson. It can be difficult for adults to repeat this lesson, so I don’t recommend drawing the sky for young children using this lesson, but if you have great desire- then you can try it. I also want to note the lesson “” - be sure to try it again if you still have time and desire to draw today.

What you will need

In order to draw the sky 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 “sky 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.

Tip: Perform 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.

First, I filled the canvas with a gradient fill. I took the dark blue and light blue colors shown in the picture below. Since we are trying to paint the sky, which we look at from the bottom up, the lower part of the canvas will be further from us, and therefore lighter and paler. Keep this in mind as you draw and try to maintain this ratio throughout your work.

Now that we've done the most important thing, let's try to draw up a sketch. You can, of course, create on the fly, but I prefer to arrange the composition somehow before starting to draw. I wanted to display light feathers below, place them on the right, and below it a small cloud. Well, the hero of the picture will be the trail from the flying one. Once you've made a sketch, it's best to keep it on the topmost layer and turn it on periodically to compare it with what you come up with. True, it is not uncommon for the composition to change during drawing. But it's not scary. The main thing is that this doesn’t happen by accident and then you don’t have to fix everything.

My main brush for painting clouds is the Soft Round Brush. I usually draw on a large canvas (this drawing was made in size 2400*3200 pixels). But the whole time I was drawing it was reduced to 25%.

I find it convenient to paint with a very wide range of brush radii. Yes, and for the airplane and small parts you will need magnification, otherwise accuracy may not work.

So, with a soft round brush with a very large diameter, I highlight the surface where the sun and cloud will be. What does it mean - highlighting? I simply paint over the places I need with low opacity and pressure (approximately 20−30%) - where the sun, clouds, feather clouds will be. That is, chaotically, but deliberately I fill out more light color canvas. In order for the work not to be completely monotonous, I add the same Blue colour, but slightly different from those already available. You can choose any color you like. Just remember that it should be bluish-yellow too.

Tip: Don't skip this step. Due to laziness and the desire to quickly start drawing clouds, many people skip this seemingly insignificant step. But it is precisely this that forms the beginning of the volume of the sky. If you don't do this, your sky will look flat and your clouds will look harsh and cardboard-like.

Using the same brush, but with a small diameter, I outline the first stripes of clouds in the distance. I draw at low opacity (20−30%) sometimes with straight lines, sometimes with hatching or even spirals. Try it different variants and leave those that seem more suitable to you. There's really nothing complicated here. The main thing to remember is that you need to draw with different diameters and, as it were, layer by layer, gently pass over the top.

Tip: Try not to immediately enhance the clouds to white. Do it gradually. Remember that the lines should not be solid and continuous and, most importantly, should not be dense and thick. That's why we paint with a soft brush and at low opacity. Only towards the end you need to increase the opacity and carefully detail it with thin stripes or spirals.

I continue to layer the stripes of clouds at the bottom of the drawing and have sketched out a base for the clouds that I plan to place to the right of the airplane. Please note that I did all this with a low opacity and even for light detail I used a range of approximately 40-50%.

Now, I took a brush from the set for painting clouds and with a very low opacity (20−30%) and walked along the upper right part of the drawing, gradually mixing the colors, using an eyedropper to pick up those that turned out in the drawing. So we get smooth transition. There's not much to explain here. This step is identical to the first step immediately after filling the gradient. The only difference is the brush.

I didn’t like how I positioned the cloud on the left and using the Liquify filter I slightly modified it and pulled it to the left. In general, this tool is quite useful for fixing what you don't like. The main thing here is not to overdo it.

Advice: Save often. Especially if you are just a beginner artist, then save a lot of files so that you can roll back. If possible, paint on a small number of layers, merging them together along the way. Big number layers are not a crime, but they eat up a lot of memory on your computer. Well, a small number of layers gradually kills the fear of corrections.

Now that we've tinkered with the image a little, I'm going back to the soft round brush. I increase the opacity to 50−70% and paint with a very small diameter. What am I doing? That's right - I'll detail the clouds a little. The main thing to remember here is that the strokes should be short, sometimes even just dotted squiggles, spirals, or dashes. Do not draw long, continuous lines, straight or curved. Do everything in small pieces. And if at the same time your pen pressure still works well enough, then you will see how much difference there will be between a solid squiggle and pieces. So, I added a little detail to the clouds on the left and darkened the clouds on the right a little, as I was starting to miss the clear sky.

After carefully studying my drawing, I decided to abandon the arc-shaped cloud on the left and painted it over with a large soft brush with a low opacity, layer by layer. The most important thing here is not to be afraid to give up an idea and come up with something new. There's nothing wrong with redrawing. But usually this understanding just comes with time. Now, using a cloud brush with a low opacity and a small diameter, I sketched in the cloud on the left and enhanced the cloud in the upper right corner, creating noticeable transitions that could be mistaken for soft cloud transitions.

Tip: If you just draw a line with the cloud brush, you'll end up with just a patch with jagged edges. In order to get volume, you again need to make small strokes with this brush. Putting them in random order and looking exclusively visually whether you like it or not.

All this time I paint exclusively with white or, using a pipette, take the color directly from the drawing when I made the general mass for the spot on the right, where the sun will be. But for the cloud I also took dark blue color and added it below and a little between the white. Since the light falls on the cloud from above, the small one will be from below. It is almost invisible, but gives a feeling of volume.

Armed again (and again, again) with a soft brush with a high opacity (about 70%), I added details to the clouds on the left, giving them a little more volume. And again, I do this with very smooth and short strokes. Sometimes I just make dots.

I then took a light yellow color and added it to the top right corner (soft round brush with low opacity (~30%) and large diameter) where I have the sun. Remember to keep the top left corner dark and clean. You can add a little purple there to enhance the depth.

Further actions are not much different from all previous ones. I enhance the white on the feather clouds with small and large diameter with varying degrees of opacity. If I don’t like a place, I don’t erase it, but paint over it with a large diameter brush and then detail it again. If you erase, you will end up with a tear, which will be more difficult to fix later than to paint over it.

I clean the sky where there are no clouds, as it has become a little dirty with a lighter color. I smooth out the transitions from dark blue and down to light. All this is done simply with the same brush with a large diameter and low opacity.

The process is coming to an end. I again process all the clouds a little and reduce the saturation at the very bottom. It seemed to me that the clouds there were unnecessary. They stuck to the bottom of the picture, removing the feeling of volume. I reduce the saturation very simply - with a brush with a large diameter and low opacity, I simply paint over it. The main thing here is not to regret what you drew.

Tip: In such cases, try painting on a separate layer, and then play with its transparency settings, choosing the interval that seems most ideal to you. And when you are satisfied, merge the layers.

I filled the remaining space with two stripes from the airplane using a cloud brush with different opacity and diameter.

First, I painted one stripe with a thin round soft brush, then I duplicated it and, after turning it a little as I needed the transformation, I placed it side by side.
Having increased the resolution, I used the cloud brush with 100% transparency to go over the entire length of the stripes, gradually increasing the radius of the brush.
Switching to the eraser, I lowered its opacity and set the cloud brush as the eraser brush and corrected the stripes, which I had a little spread out to the sides, since the cloud brush did not lie in a straight line.
Using the same eraser, but with a larger diameter, I wiped the tail a little, making it more transparent and dissolved in the sky.
Well, then I painted the plane itself with a couple of strokes. In such a situation, the plane is drawn simply with a hard round brush and white. That is, we draw only the glare from the sun. That's all.

I slightly increase the contrast automatically and see that I like the result better this way, although the difference is not too noticeable. I add a filter Render->Lens Flare (Filter - Rendering - Glare), setting the point with the “sun” in the upper right corner. I leave all values at default.

Tip: If this results in circles in the top corner, go over it with a brush to mask the effect of the filter.

That's all!

I sincerely hope that you enjoyed the lesson on how to draw a sky 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.