You can’t make your paper whiter, so the only way to make the cloud look brighter is to make the background (the sky) darker. When drawing clouds in a monochromatic or gray scale, like this, it’s always a good idea to draw the sky darker than it looks in real life. Once the basic shapes were in place, I continued darkening some shadows and lightening other areas with a White Pearl eraser or a kneaded eraser.
I alternated using my pencil and tortillon to get nice, smooth dark values in this area.įor the upper part of the clouds (which you can see below) I used lighter pressure and a 2B pencil, followed by medium to medium-heavy pressure with the tortillon to blend the graphite and draw some of the lighter shadows in the middle values.Īnd here’s the full drawing at this stage, to give some overall perspective: Here’s a detail area showing the bottom part of the clouds. They will be my “anchor darks” so I wanted them in place before getting too much done with the larger, brighter clouds. I also used a 2B pencil to draw the small, dark clouds at the bottom. To start with, I kept to larger shapes, establishing values and contours that I could add to later. take your time, and use a reference photo to make sure your shapes look natural. Tortillons pick up a lot of graphite when you blend with them-enough that you can actually draw with them! I began shaping my clouds by lightly rubbing shadow shapes onto the paper using the “dirty” side of the tortillon.īlend a little, draw a little. I used medium-heavy pressure and the side of the tortillon.Īfter that, I rubbed the drawing with folded paper towel to smooth it out a little further. I used it just like I used the pencil and worked across the sky stroking in one direction, then went back over the sky in the opposite direction. Next, work with the graphite you’ve already put down to create a field of smooth shading and value.įor this job, a tortillon ( a blending stick made of tightly rolled paper) was the most effective. If you’re adding a slight gradient to your sky, then use the same process as before, beginning with medium-light pressure at the top and decreasing pressure as you move toward the bottom of the page. The only truly white area should be the cloud. The goal is to cover every centimeter of the sky with at least a little bit of graphite. When you’ve finished your first layer, add a second one, using strokes that go perpendicular to the strokes underneath. Notice how I decreased my pencil pressure as I went down the paper, making the sky lighter at the top than the bottom. That motion produces softer edges, so the edges of your cloud should be soft, too. They are constantly in motion, growing or shrinking as they move across the sky. Use the hold that works best for you and is the most comfortable.įollow the lines you drew in step one, but don’t worry if you’re not 100% accurate. I like that method because it covers the most paper the most quickly. I held the pencil near the end and at a nearly horizontal angle so I was shading with the side of the pencil instead of the point. I used a 2B pencil and medium-light pressure (slightly less than normal handwriting pressure). I’ve made this drawing a little darker than I ordinarily would so it shows up in an illustration, but the lighter you draw, the better.
You want a guideline that lasts only long enough to shade the sky. As you can see in this illustration, the lines are neither dark nor continuous. The purpose of this outline is to show you where to shade sky, so the lines don’t need to be detailed. Let’s get started! Step 1: Lightly draw a simple outline of a cloud (Although you can use most of the techniques below with plenty of other media, too.) In fact, I’m ONLY going to be using graphite for this demonstration. Well, I used to think so too, but then I discovered a fairly simple way to draw perfect, fluffy clouds, in just a few easy steps. The answer? Add some luminous, cotton-candy clouds! That flat expanse overhead can bring even the most detailed painting down to just plain “boring.”
One of the worst things you can do to a landscape painting is pair it with a clear blue sky. By Carrie Lewis in Art Tutorials > Drawing Tips