Sketch Technique: how to draw clouds

The initial stages of artistic skill include the ability to create sketches, outlines, outlines, and work out individual details. Possession of pencil, technique of pencil drawing - the first steps of mastering painting. They are important for work in any genre: a portrait, a still-life, a landscape.

Clouds are floating in the sky, clouds

Working through the landscape in perspective, beginning artists face a problem: how to draw clouds? Regardless of whether it works with a living nature or a photographic image, you can solve it in the following way. First, just create a sketch of the cloudy sky:

• Study carefully the "model" with which you work. Catch the characteristic forms of clouds, their mutual location. Try to remember as accurately as possible.
• Now the first step is how to draw clouds: take a drawing sheet, a simple pencil and apply dashed lines in three layers. The main one is horizontal, and the additional ones are diagonally. Hatching should be fairly dense, but the diamond-shaped texture should be visible.
• The second step of how to draw clouds is background alignment. A soft cloth (for example, a flannel) or a blotting paper is taken, and all the hatching is neatly triturated on the sheet. On paper, you can lightly press - this will grind and those lines that are drawn too bold. It is not recommended to touch the drawing with your bare hands: fingers will erase graphite, there will be traces, which then it will be difficult to disguise. To make the background more distinct, before drawing the clouds further, one can once again shade the sheet and grind it again. In this case, the tone will lie evenly.
• It was the turn to work out the clouds. This is useful for the same photo, which was mentioned above, or personal impressions. The easiest way is pinnate clouds. The movement of air masses can be transferred, easily going through the pattern of the elastic band. There will appear vague light bands - just like weightless clouds. The form can be arbitrary. How to draw a cumulus cloud? The same rubber band make circular movements, somewhere erasing a pencil stronger, somewhere - softer. It is important to have elastic bands of several varieties: soft and hard. In this case, the softest eraser is needed.
• Now, with a harder pencil, we process the gaps between the clouds, we draw around the cloud contours, we add the volume to the drawing. Toning should emphasize all the necessary convexities, the play of light and shadow. Operate the method of hatching and circular lines. In order for the transitions to be smooth, again smooth the background with the help of a rubber band.
• Pay attention to the lighting. In the landscape, light plays an important role, often the compositional center of the picture. If your clouds are highlighted by the sun, this too needs to be expressed and emphasized.
• And, finally, a few more tips on how to draw clouds with a pencil. Firstly, at different times of the year, as well as at different times of the day, the sky changes its appearance, and with it the type of clouds changes. Storm clouds look much darker, heavier than the sky on a fine day. And the clouds in winter or late autumn are completely different than, for example, in early spring or in the middle of summer. Secondly, the sky should not outweigh the main plan of the picture, unless it is the artist's own idea.

Here is your sketch ready. Now you can transfer it to the canvas in color and colors. Good luck in the artistic field!