Painting a hazy sky full of clouds

In today's video, we're gonna paint this cloud-slash-landscape painting together. The first thing we're gonna do is, we mix the colors for the background, basically just the sky, and the first layer of color for the grass part and landscape part. As you can see, we're just using seven colors here. The main color is the blue in the background, some blue, some purple, black, cadmium red, some raw sienna, some variation of it, and a lighter version with some more raw sienna. Yeah, the mixing is done, and we start now to paint the background, the sky, and the back, and the grass, and the landscape in the front. We start to apply the color on this 40 by 60 cm canvas on a special frame. See, I'm already blending in the bit more greyish color here. Then I'm leaving out the space for the patches of this very bright, warm color. We use as the background color for the clouds. Color's very thick, put on, basically very... Yeah, I have to cover the white of the canvas in one sitting, in one go. Lots of blending going on. See on the lower end, we have mixed a bit of a more blue color. Already blending into the warmer color we applied before. Yeah, very easily covering all the canvas. So you saw that the first layer, the background layer, is put on very thick, and now we put on the grass and landscape part, and this one will be put on a bit thinner. Yeah, then we start to mix the color for the greens in the foreground. See variations of yellow, phthalo blue, cadmium red, and of course also some variation with raw sienna. People forget very often to put in this raw sienna. It's a very brownish tone, but it's needed for parts of the greens in the foreground. Yeah, imagine you just put on the mid-tone value, and you add later on just darker and lighter colors to put on the details, and kind of flesh out the landscape part. Yeah, then we start to build up the greens, you can see here. Already using lots of color variations, some greener parts, some a bit more fading out parts, like this one here, kind of blending into the background color. This is still wet, by the way. Just imagine we put on those colors roughly the way they should belong. Also note color variations, some browner tones, a bit more greener tones here. Imagine we put on the colors in a very blended way. Yeah, squint your eyes and put on those mid-tone values, then you know what I'm doing here. Very rough, actually. I think you get the idea, kind of. Let me grab some other brushes, smaller ones, but very soft ones. Then we start to mix the color for the cloud bodies. See the variations of titanium white, a bit of lemon yellow, again some titanium white, phthalo blue, raw sienna, and cadmium red. Variations of this color, darker ones. Again, no linseed oil to them. Very thick manner, so very dark color. See, lots of black in it. Now we're going to start to flesh out the cloud bodies themselves. Let me start to finally build up the cloud bodies. The background color is completely dry. Detailed shot of how the outline should look like. See, very fuzzy, partially also blended into the background color. Mixing while I'm going. Color for the cloud bodies themselves in the shadow areas. See, darker towards the lower end, a bit lighter on the upper end. I'm still adding some more details here and there. Going back, adding more of this brighter color. Do lots of blending. I'm really trying to build up the bubbles that we have here. I'm also using a lot of the background color. It's kind of shining through. We also have lots of this raw sienna mixed into the colors on the lower end. You can see here. There's a lot of dry brush blending going on. See here, I'm mixing another set of colors. More of a reddish tone to it. Also again some raw sienna and just wipe it over. Then start with the brush brush to rub this color into the background. To really blend even more clouds into this part here. Here on the lower end we have this very dark color coming in, but also very blended. As you can see here, no harsh edges allowed here in this painting. Again with a very dry brush using the background color to really fade out parts of the cloud. Adding again some lighter parts, extending here and there. Slowly closing the gap here. Getting a bit lighter. Really trying to flash out this part of the cloud. On the lower end we need some more hair perspective. Some more of a fader blue tone to it. For the shadow in the cloud section. Again spreading out this color with a very soft brush. It's kind of a glaze over the color we applied before. Another tip from me, really try to have soft edges. Especially in the lower part here. Try to really fade out the clouds in the background. Like here and here. This really helps to communicate this warm summer landscape slash cloud feeling. On the right side I'm also applying this a bit more bluish color. As you can see here. Again spreading it out with a flash brush. To have again kind of a glaze. Just darkening down parts of this section here. Also adding this a bit warmer color on the upper end. Again really trying to build up the bubbles that we have in the clouds here. Extending the outline a bit more. On the upper end I decided to put in another little cloud body. It can be a very thin color as you can see here. It's again fading out into the background color. This brighter section here. The very white color is put on a bit thicker. This color is not covering so well. But the rest is kind of fading out as you can see here. It's amazing to see how quick you can build up a little cloud body. That really looks realistic with just some glazing action. Adding darkness here and there. Getting a bit more volume in. Again blending quite a bit. We have some parts with a bit more of a solid color. Lower left side. It's here. The other part, the part on the right side is fading out. Connecting basically with the color we applied in the first setting. To make it perfect I'm just blending a bit more. Kind of softening down this cloud section here. Extending it a bit more into the background cloud section we painted before. Another tip from me. Color variation is a very important thing here. You see we have cooler, darker greens. We have lighter, warmer greens. We have more brownish tones here and there. This is very important for landscape painting. You need a lot of color variation to make it look more realistic. I'm just repeating the colors we mixed before. You see I'm using a flat brush. I'm just using the edge of this brush to put on those leaf details. Lots of color variations you can see here. We have cooler greens, warmer greens here now. This edge technique here really helps to fill out the canvas. But we're not completely filling it out. Then we need some tree trunks, limbs of the tree beneath. Just put on over the still wet color. Then I grab again a larger flat brush and start to stipple on the shadow greens here. It's a bit of a cooler green. Then I put over this wet color some more tree details. Some limbs, some trunks. All very faded out. On the left side I'm stippling on some darker details first. Getting some more structure. Then I use a very thick layer of color with a very thin and small brush. And start to slowly build up some leaves details here. I'm really just stippling it on. I'm not trying to paint leaves like they should look like. I'm just trying to hint the viewer's eye to the BC details here. But the viewer will step away a few feet. And there's no need to really paint every single leaf like it should look like. I'm just trying to hint the whole thing. Not just like a blade of grass, I'm also just hinting them here and there. Another layer of color over the first color here. Some color variation I'm putting in. Again hinting some different grass bits here. And this is kind of enough for this section here to make the viewer's eye believe we have some grass here. Adding some more strategic details here and there. Random looking patches. Finally adding some reflection near the beach. Finishing up the painting. This here is the finished painting. That's it for today. Thanks for watching. Hit the like button and the subscribe button. Also please check out my Patreon. Where you can dive into in-detail painting sessions with me. Between 2 and over 10 hours of pure in-detail painting. No time-lapse. The whole color mixing process. Really make sure to check it out. See you next time. Bye!