How To Draw Clouds With Colored Pencils

Practice you lot know how to depict a clear heaven with colored pencil?

Think advisedly. There's more to it than picking a nice blue and putting it on paper.

Don't believe me?

Accept a wait at your box of pencils. Unless you have a small set of pencils, you probably have at to the lowest degree half a dozen shades of blue. Which ane is the right one?

And y'all tin can't pick one or 2 colors that work with every mural drawing. Not all articulate blue skies are the same shade of bluish, afterward all. The color you see on whatsoever given twenty-four hour period is determined by altitude, the moisture and rut in the air, and the fourth dimension of year.

A winter sky doesn't await the same as a summer sky.

Nor does a clear heaven in the desert wait the same as a clear sky in the mountains.

Yous can't trust photographs, either. Not unless you took them yourself. Why? Because photographers—the serious ones—love filters and special lenses. Some of those lenses and filters raise color and brand a rather patently blue sky absolutely luscious.

So just how do yous describe a clear blue sky in colored pencil?

General Tips on How to Draw a Articulate Blue Sky

Lets begin with a few general tips that work no affair what type of blue sky—or whatever articulate sky—yous might be drawing. I'm using dejection for the following illustrations, merely the techniques will work for dark skies and sunsets or sunrises, every bit well.

If You Have a Small Patch of Heaven to Draw

If you're cartoon a very minor section of sky—a bit a blue peaking through the trees, for example—or if y'all're drawing is quite small, consider using a cotton wool swab or cotton ball to apply color. The upshot is polish, very thin colour with admittedly no pencil strokes.

The procedure is simple. Begin by using very heavy pressure to utilize the colors y'all desire to use to a slice of scrap paper.

Stroke the cotton swab or cotton fiber brawl across the color swatches to pick upwards color.
Next, stroke your cartoon with the cotton swab or cotton wool brawl with light to medium force per unit area.

Continue adding layers until the sky is the color and value you want. "Recharge" the cotton swab or cotton brawl frequently by rubbing it against the color swabs.

If y'all want a clear sky with no variations, go along to layer colour over every inch of the sky patch, and then blend with the cotton swab or cotton ball until the color is saturated and looks the way yous want information technology to look.

I described the process more fully in Add Color to a Colored Pencil Drawing with Bath Tissue. The procedure is the same—but more precise—if you supersede the bath tissue with cotton wool swabs or cotton balls.

If Yous Have a Large Sky Expanse to Draw

With larger areas of sky, the best method is drawing with your pencils.

Layer multiple colors with very light pressure. If you take difficulty cartoon with light pressure level, hold the pencil as close to the end every bit you tin can, and hold it so it's most horizontal. Stroke lightly, with trivial or no force per unit area on the pencil. Let the weight of the pencil piece of work for yous.

Utilize the side of a well-sharpened pencil or a woodless pencil to cover larger areas.

Piece of work in circular strokes to avoid the darker areas at the beginning and end of "back-and-along" strokes.

E'er make the sky slightly darker toward the acme of your drawing and lighter at the horizon.

Optional: Blend between layers with a tissue or cotton ball to even out color and preserve paper molar.

How to Depict a Clear Sky with Colored Pencil

Let me prove you lot stride by step how I draw a clear sky. Here's the reference I'll exist working from.

Choosing the Correct Colors

The kickoff thing I do is compare the reference epitome with my collection of blue pencils. My preferred sky colors are Light Cerulean, Non Photo Blue, Pulverization Blueish, Sky Blue Low-cal, and True Bluish, but I could see immediately that none of those colors were a expert fit for the shades of blue in this summer-time sky. I'd have to do some blending.

TIP: Having trouble seeing the colors in your reference photo? If it'due south a digital prototype, open information technology in Photoshop or any software yous use for photos. Utilize the colour picker and click on the surface area y'all want to draw. The color in that surface area will be displayed isolated from all the other colors and will give you a much clearer thought of the true color. Match your colored pencils to that color.

The lightest blue actually leans toward green. The closest color in my collection proved to be Light Aqua, a color I rarely employ for drawing skies.

The lower sky is lighter than the rest, so I also selected a similar color in a lighter value. I made three choices, so I too fabricated three color swatches with Light Aqua. And then I layered each lighter color over a color swatch, as shown below. It was easy to come across that Sky Bluish Light and Light Aqua provided the all-time combination.

The Initial Layers

I outlined the trees with Light Aqua and low-cal pressure. Whenever I draw background elements showtime, I outline any shapes that overlap it. All you lot need is a line that's dark enough to bear witness where the sky ends.

Next, I began filling in the heaven with light pressure and careful, closely spaced strokes. Because the end goal is to draw even color with no visible strokes, I combined round strokes with diagonal strokes and concentrated on a small area.

I always employ very light pressure when starting time to draw skies (or nearly anything else). Darkness and saturation are developed layer by layer. The topmost part of the patch of color shown beneath is the result of one or two layers of color. The more saturated area at the bottom is five or six layers, all applied with lite pressure and a sharp pencil.

TIP: In the illustration above, my pencil should be sharper. I've worn down one side of it and merely turned it so I was drawing with the resulting precipitous "border." But I'm sometimes a lazy creative person, and didn't sharpen the pencil instead. Laziness usually leads to more work.

Here'south what the area looked like when I finished layering Light Aqua.

Calculation Layers

I next layered Sky Blue Light over the lower portion with medium heavy pressure, both to polish out the layer of Light Aqua and fill in the molar of the paper.

There'southward a warm cast to the lower sky, so I burnished with Cream in a small-scale area at the bottom, and followed up by burnishing White into most of the same area to lighten it a little more than.

Go on the edges soft and polish. Colour and value should change so gradually that there are no edges anywhere. Whether you work from i part of the sky to the next or cover all of the sky with every layer, be deliberate in how y'all apply color. When y'all find yourself getting sloppy or "just scribbling", terminate. Those scribbles will be hard to cover and then information technology'due south better to take a break.

One time the initial colour is on the newspaper, continue building upward. Piece of work with light pressure and multiple layers. If necessary, "weave" unlike shades of blue in with the original colors, layer by layer.

It's of import to think that a well-drawn heaven volition be heavily saturated with color: There should exist no paper holes at all if the heaven you lot're drawing is clear. When I stopped to take this photo, I estimated I was one-3rd to one-half finished.

Building Saturation

As the sky progresses, I add new colors equally well as more layers. The previous image shows True Blueish at the acme and Light Cerulean Blue throughout the heaven from the elevation nearly to the bottom.

I also added a light layer or ii of Ultramarine at the top in the following analogy.

A few more layers of True Blueish, Non-Photo Blue, and Heaven Bluish Low-cal.

Every layer was applied with light pressure and careful strokes to embrace as much of the paper as possible. I accept started increasing pressure a little toward the elevation, where the color will be the darkest, simply I won't use heavy pressure level until the end, when I burnish the sky.

Even so, you tin can see the deviation a few boosted layers of color make even if they are applied with light pressure. The betoken? Don't burnish too shortly!

Burnishing

Rather than use a colorless blender for burnishing, I used the same colors I used to color the sky.

When I burnished, I glassy from the tiptop down with Non-Photo Blueish, and from the bottom up with Sky Blue Light. Most of the strokes were horizontal and I blended the two colors together equally much every bit possible for smoothen transitions.

And that's how to depict a clear sky with colored pencil. At least that'due south the mode I do it.

There are variations on this theme and much of what I've shown you lot hither is determined by paper color and other factors. If you begin with a blueish newspaper, for case, in that location would be a lot less layering involved.

The type of paper (I used Bristol vellum) and pencils (I used Prismacolor) would also make up one's mind how you might need to modify how yous draw. Bristol vellum doesn't usually accept equally many layers to cover because it'due south so smooth. Stonehenge, on the other hand, will take more layers to produce the same level of color saturation.

Now that y'all know the basics of how to describe a clear sky with colored pencil, you lot can conduct your own experiments to see what works for y'all.

Carrie Fifty. Lewis

Carrie L. Lewis has been an artist longer than she can remember. An oil painter from her teens, she began using colored pencils because they were ideal for highly detailed piece of work, and were easier to transport and use at equus caballus shows. She now uses colored pencils virtually exclusively. From the beginning, equus caballus were a favorite subject, and she's been an equine portrait artist for almost of her career. When she began cartoon with colored pencil (and after a move to Kansas,) she found special beauty in landscapes, and landscapes are now what she draws most often. The rugged Flint Hills region of eastern Kansas is at the top of her listing of cute places to visit and draw.

Source: https://www.carrie-lewis.com/how-to-draw-a-clear-sky-with-colored-pencil/

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