Learn to Paint Cirrostratus Clouds!

In this lesson, you will learn how to paint cirrostratus clouds. What is interesting about these clouds is its composition! Contrary to what it looks like, these clouds are categorized by a makeup of dirt and dust in the atmosphere.

Existing at 20000 feet and above, the ice crystals in these clouds allows the halo effect to take place. This should ring a bell as most of us have seen the 'lens flare' effect when we look up at the sun on a clear and bright day.

Another thing to note that precipitation will usually follow these clouds within 12-24 hours. This should give you an idea of when these clouds will appear and what environments it can create.

So, let's get started and begin to paint a cirrostratus cloud!

1. Setting up the perspective

As with most of the practice exercises that involved digital painting, it is always a good idea to have perspective guide lines to point you in the right direction.

Depending on how you want to paint, the two favorite perspectives that I like to use is the zero point perspective and the two point perspective guide lines. In this case, I am using the two point perspective.

As for the background, make it a nice dark blue hue. This will help you with contrasting the light filaments of cirrostratus clouds.

When you are ready, move to the next step and start panting in early clumps with a light brush!

2. Early cirrostratus cloud formations

To paint cirrostratus clouds means you are able to compose interlinking strands of fiber. In order to see these fibers more easily, you will being to paint a rough set of streaks across your digital atmosphere.

So, on a new layer, begin to paint random streaks. You may want to use a brush with a high opacity and pressure setting. This will help you save time.

Also, be careful when you make these streaks in regards to consistency. Make sure it follows your perspective guide lines. If you want, you can also add some curved variations to these streaks. It's up to you.

Does this technique seem similar? It should as it involves your knowledge of gesture drawings! As you can see, this step is very easy if you have practiced some gesture drawings in the 'techniques' section of this site.

3. Creating cloud masses

This step involves a bit of work with individual streaks that you have painted. Initially, to make things easier, you should do a mass blur effect on the entire canvas. Your digital art program is capable of doing this.

For example, you can find mass blurring options under the filters in Photoshop.

Once you have mass blurred everything, its time to work on the individual bits! The best way to do this is to grab the blur brush. Once that is selected, you will need to choose an irregular shaped brush head.

I would recommend ones that have a sponge-like or a spray-paint-like texture. The edges of these textures will give you fibrous edges as you begin to smudge.

To get the maximum efficiency, you will need to smudge on high pressure sensitivity. That way, the fibers are easily pushed out of the general streaked masses.

Once that is completed, there are a few more final steps to paint cirrostratus clouds that you will need to consider!

4. Light and shadow

Now that you have a good general image of the clouds, the next step is to improve on what you have. There are about a million different ways to do this. Regardless, it is still dependant on just the basic digital art tools outlined on this site.

The first thing that I am going to recommend is duplication of the cloud layers. Once that is done, continue with more mass blurring effects like motion blur or radial blur. After that, you can begin to merge layers together into a background layer.

The reason is that you will begin to use the dodge and burn tools. It is most effective when every color is on a single layer as the tool will not have to deal with transparent pixels in its calculations.

As usual, clouds that are closer to the foreground will exhibit more uses of the dodge tool.

Continue with smudging the cloud fibers once everything looks good. One more effect that you can do is to create the halo effect. This can be done just using an effect within your digital painting program.

Normally, this effect is called 'lens flare' in Photoshop. It may be called something different in your digital art program. That is why you need to look around!

In the meantime, have fun in practicing how to paint cirrostratus clouds as it incorporates a lot of new techniques you have learned as well as new techniques you will discover!

P. S. Make sure to submit any artworks that you have to the site galleries as I would love to see your progress!

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