How to Paint Storm Clouds and Wheat Field

For the longest time going back to when I was a boy I have always been fascinated with weather particularly thunderstorms.  Thunderstorms are dangerous, they have a history of destroying property and taking lives.  Whenever I'm indoors at home and I hear thunder I immediately go to the window or look outside at the sky whether at night or in the day.

There is a beautiful appeal to me about thunderstorms in the fact the cloud are so different in their appearance.  The clouds have a cauliflower appearance to them and according to the time of day beautiful values of grays and blues.  As an artist I am moved to paint these majestic cloud onto the canvas.  So in this blog I want to share with you how I produced this paint from imagination.

After drawing a thumbnail sketch of what Im going to paint, I determined that it was going to be day time theme in which there is a thunderstorm appoaching a wheat field.  As you look at the photo above I have a glass palette with duck tape around the edges to prevent myself from being cut.  Grey board underneath glass palette.

A square piece of white watercolor paper also underneath the glass.  I have a palette knife and 3 brushes.  The 3 brushes are hog hair bristles a #2 bright brush #4 filbert and a #5 flat brush.  The colors I used to mix for the sky and mostly the clouds seen here are  phthalocyanine blue, sky blue, titanium white, neutral gray, flesh yellow, and flesh.

I used a sponge brush which is not shown in the photo above to stain the entire canvas in order to remove the white.  I used the #2 bright brush to paint in the features of the subject.  I used a wash of yellow ochre for the underpainting.

Next I used the same #2 bright brush for the edges of the clouds and I used it to block in the stream of water.  Also the sky was blocked in with a #5 long bristle flat brush.  This is the only stage I used the #5 brush.

"Storm Appoaching Wheat Field" done in Acrylic 10"x10"  ©2018 DWeaver Art

The rest of the painting I used for the trees titanium white, light green yellow ochre, grass green, and phthalocynine blue.  Finally, for the wheat field and cast shadow on to the stream of water I used neutral gray, black, perminent red, phthalocynine blue and raw umber yellow ochre and titanium white.

I hope this blog has inspired you to paint and have taught you something you can use in your next painting.  If you have been enriched by this art blog then please feel free to comment below or send me a messege at deeweaver15@gmail.com  Thank you very much. Find a pencil or brush and create something beautiful.

How to Paint a Cloud above Clouds in Acrylic

Clouds are very beautiful to me.  I really enjoy looking at them espeically during twilight or earily evening.  They then to take on a more remarkable beauty of colors.  For example, lavender, pink, orange, yellow just to name a few.  In this art blog I want to discuss my approach at painting a clouds above clouds. 

 
The first step is to do a thumbnail drawing of what you plan on painting.  After a very small thumbnail is completed with its over all values of at least 4 then it is time to move forward to doing an underpainting from the thumbnail drawing. 

Here as you can see from the photo above is the underpainting of a cloud.  An underpainting is done in a monochromatic color scheme like the one above in the photo.  For this underpainting I used yellow ochre to place down my composition and values.  I also used a #2 bright brush to apply the paint.

Next I added color to the underpainting.  For the darkest values of color I mixed in phthalocyanine blue, permanent red and a little amount of gray.  For the middle value tone of color I mixed in medium yellow, yellow ochre and orange.  Now for the highest value for the clouds I mixed medium yellow, titanium white and a very small amount of yellow ochre. 

I used the same brush from my underpainting a #2 bright brush which has short bristles unlike a flat brush which has longer bristles.  I mixed in two values of blue for the sky to give it a more atmospheric depth of illusion.  For this final mix, I used for the darker value of blue titanium white with a very small amount of sky blue. 

Finally,  I mixed in for the lightest value of sky with titanium white, a small amount of sky blue and a trace of yellow ochre.  Like orange and red to name a few colors they are very saturated and can easily dominate or take over the color value and intesity.  The technique I used is that I used the tip and side of the bright brush to paint in my clouds.  Last for painting in the sky I used a #8 filbert brush. 

I hope this process post on painting a cloud above clouds in acrylic has been helpful and inspiring.  If you are pleased with this post feel free to comment below and perhaps share with me your approach or your personally feelings about this post.  Thank you very much.










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