Most beginners approach the sky like it’s a backdrop in a school play. You grab a tube of Titanium White, some Cerulean Blue, and start dabbing little fluffy circles until the canvas looks like a bag of marshmallows exploded. It’s frustrating. You’ve probably looked at a Constable or a Turner painting and wondered how their atmosphere feels heavy, wet, and alive while yours feels like cardboard.
Painting clouds is actually less about painting "objects" and more about painting light passing through water vapor.
The biggest lie we're told as kids is that clouds are white. They aren't. Honestly, if you use pure white straight from the tube for anything other than the very brightest "glint" of a sunlit edge, you’ve already lost the battle. To learn how to paint clouds in oil, you have to start seeing the greys, the violets, and the weird, dusty oranges that actually make up a cumulus formation.
Oil paint is the perfect medium for this because of its long drying time. You can manipulate the edges for hours. You can "scumble." You can glaze. It’s forgiving, provided you don't turn your sky into a muddy swamp of over-mixed pigments.
The Secret Physics of a Realistic Sky
Before you even touch a brush, you have to understand the "staircase" effect of the atmosphere.
Think of the sky as a ceiling, not a wall. Clouds directly above your head are the largest and show the most "underbelly." As they move toward the horizon, they don't just get smaller—they get flatter and more compressed. This is perspective. If you paint every cloud with the same roundness, your painting will have zero depth. It’ll look flat.
Then there’s the color shift.
Near the zenith—that’s the spot directly above you—the blue is deep and dark. As you move toward the horizon, the blue pales out, often turning into a greenish-white or a hazy grey due to Mie scattering. This is where light hits dust and water droplets in the lower atmosphere. If your sky is the same shade of blue from top to bottom, your clouds will never look like they’re "sitting" in space. They’ll just look stuck on.
The "Oily" Advantage
Why oils? Acrylics dry too fast. By the time you’ve blended the shadow of a cloud into the light side, the paint has "skinned over."
In oil painting, you can use a technique called alla prima (wet-on-wet) to let the clouds melt into the sky. Famous landscape painters like Edgar Payne or Birge Harrison talked extensively about "lost and found" edges. A cloud should have a crisp, hard edge where the sun hits it, but the shadow side should almost vibrate and disappear into the blue of the sky. Oil paint lets you achieve that soft transition with a dry, fluffy brush.
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Choosing Your Palette Without Using Pure White
Stop reaching for the Titanium White immediately.
Titanium is incredibly opaque and "cool." If you mix it with blue, you get a chalky, artificial color. Instead, try using Zinc White or a "Mixing White." They are more transparent.
For the shadows—the parts of the cloud that don't see the sun—you need a complex grey. A great "cloud shadow" recipe usually involves:
- Ultramarine Blue: It’s warmer than Cerulean and has a depth that mimics the atmosphere.
- Burnt Sienna: When mixed with Ultramarine, it creates a gorgeous, chromatic grey that looks much more natural than anything you’d get from a black tube.
- Alizarin Crimson: Just a tiny touch of this adds a violet hue that makes clouds look "heavy" with rain or evening light.
One mistake I see constantly is people using "Sky Blue" out of a tube. Don't do it. It’s too static. Mix your own. Use a base of Cobalt Blue for the mid-range sky and add a tiny bit of Yellow Ochre as you get closer to the horizon. It sounds counterintuitive to add yellow to a blue sky, but that’s how you get that glowing, atmospheric warmth.
Master the "Scumble" and the "Soft Edge"
When you actually start the process of how to paint clouds in oil, the physical movement of your hand matters more than the specific brush.
I prefer a hog bristle filbert. It’s tough. You can beat it up.
First, lay in your sky color. Don't make it perfect. Leave some texture. Then, while the sky is still wet, "scrub" in your cloud shapes using a very small amount of paint. This is scumbling. You’re using a relatively dry brush to drag a lighter color over a darker one. Because the oil is wet, the colors will naturally marry.
The Anatomy of a Cloud Stroke
- The Highlight: Use a thick (impasto) application of Lead White (or a Lead-alternative) on the top edges. This should be the thickest paint on your canvas.
- The Midtone: Use a slightly thinner paint for the body of the cloud.
- The Shadow: This should be the thinnest layer. You want the sky color to almost peek through the shadow.
If you make the shadows too thick, the cloud will look like a solid rock floating in the air. Clouds are translucent. They’re ghosts. Treat them like it.
Why Your Clouds Look "Dirty"
Mud happens when you over-blend.
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It’s tempting to take a big, soft mop brush and just swirl it around until everything is smooth. Stop. If you over-blend, you lose the "structural" integrity of the cloud. You end up with a blurry smear.
The trick is to blend only the edges. Leave the center of your brushstrokes alone. A great tip from the old masters is to use a clean, dry brush to very lightly "tickle" the edge where the cloud meets the sky. You’re just softening the transition, not mixing the two colors into a new third color.
If your paint starts looking like grey sludge, your brush is probably dirty. Keep five or six brushes going at once. One for the "pure" light, one for the shadows, and a completely dry one for blending.
Different Clouds, Different Rules
You can't paint a Cirrus cloud the same way you paint a Cumulus.
Cirrus clouds are those high, wispy ones. For these, use a long-haired liner brush or a "rigger." Use a lot of medium (like Liquin or Stand Oil) to make the paint flow. These clouds follow the jet stream, so they should look fast. One or two long, sweeping strokes are better than fifty tiny ones.
Stratus clouds are the flat, boring ones that cover the sky on a grey day. But they aren't actually boring! They have subtle shifts in value. To paint these, use a large flat brush and work in long, horizontal movements. Keep the value changes very close together—if the jump between your light and dark is too high, it won't look like a flat layer of mist; it'll look like a tiger stripe.
Lighting: The Golden Hour Trap
Everyone wants to paint a sunset. It's the classic "how to paint clouds in oil" dream.
But here’s the problem: people make the colors too saturated. If you use Neon Orange and Fire Engine Red, it’s going to look like a postcard from a gas station.
In a real sunset, the colors are actually quite muted. The "glow" comes from contrast, not from the brightness of the pigment. If you want a cloud to look like it's glowing orange, surround it with a deep, desaturated purple. The purple makes the orange "pop" without you having to use a radioactive-looking paint.
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Also, remember the light source. If the sun is low, the bottoms of the clouds get the light, and the tops are in shadow. This is the opposite of a midday sky. Forgetting this is the fastest way to make a painting look "wrong" to the human eye, even if the viewer can't quite explain why.
Practical Steps for Your Next Session
Instead of trying to paint a masterpiece immediately, try these specific exercises. They focus on the mechanics rather than the "art."
- The Value Scale Sky: Paint a sky using only three colors: Black, White, and one Blue. Force yourself to create five distinct "depth levels" in the clouds using only value (lightness/darkness), not color.
- The Two-Minute Cloud: Set a timer. You have two minutes to paint one cloud. This forces you to stop "fiddling" and use big, confident strokes.
- The Negative Space Study: Instead of painting a white cloud on a blue sky, paint a white canvas blue and "leave" the cloud shapes behind. This teaches you how the sky defines the cloud, not the other way around.
Technical Gear Check
If you’re serious about this, invest in a Mop Brush.
Not a cheap one—get a goat hair or a soft synthetic mop. Its only job is to be dry. You never dip it in paint. You use it at the very end to whisper over the edges of your clouds. It’s the "magic wand" of landscape painting.
Also, consider your medium. If you want those thick, juicy highlights that stand up off the canvas, use a bit of Cold Wax Medium mixed with your white. It gives the paint a matte, sculptural quality that perfectly mimics the density of a heavy cloud.
Final Insights on Atmospheric Depth
The sky is the most "liquid" part of a landscape. It should feel like it's moving.
If you look at the works of John Constable—who was basically obsessed with "clouding"—you’ll see he used very sketchy, energetic marks. He didn't want them to look still. He wanted them to look like they were blowing across the English countryside.
When you finish your painting, step back about ten feet. If the clouds look like they’re "popping" off the canvas, you might need to soften your shadows. If they look like they’re disappearing, you need more contrast in your highlights.
Realism in clouds isn't about detail; it's about the relationship between the air and the light. Master that relationship, and the clouds will practically paint themselves.
To take this further, spend a week doing "sky sketches" in a small 6x6 inch oil pad. Don't worry about trees or land. Just focus on the transition from the horizon to the zenith. Focus on how the clouds flatten as they move away from you. Once you nail the perspective of the sky, the rest of the landscape becomes significantly easier to manage because the "ceiling" of your world is finally in the right place.