A Guide to Creating Cloud Drawings!

Are you interested in making your own cloud drawings? This lesson is the basic introduction on how to draw clouds using some very common digital art tools that you are familiar with!

The great thing about this tutorial is that you can play with random patterns and still make it look like believable clouds!

This is due to the natural textures that you can do using the smudge tool and then duplicating the textures in a way that caters to the pattern that you like. Moreover, you will use this skill in whatever you will draw in the future!

Confused? Don't be! Just follow along and you will see that there is a logical approach to creating cloud drawings that is both fun and easy to do!

1. The blocking and smudging phase

First, let's start your cloud diagrams on a new digital canvas that has a nice blue background. This will set a contrasting color to paint white clouds on!

With a chalk brush, begin blocking in just random patterns of clouds. To give it some variation, streak the clouds across the canvas so you have a nice combination of cumulus and wispy clouds.

Next, take your smudge tool and begin randomly pulling on these cloud sections! Again, it's best to use a chalk shaped brush for your smudge tool as that will create little strands of wispy clouds coming out.

You can also swirl your smudge brush to create additional lumps of clouds! Any time that you find the clouds are too overpowering, sample the blue from the background and paint on top of the cloud shapes to bring it back to the background a little!

2. Duplicating the textures

Surprisingly, this is a step of creating cloud drawings that not a lot of digital artists think about! While it is alright to do everything manually, it's even better to save time while creating the right textures that you need!

Using your existing cloud textures, duplicate the entire layer and manipulate it! Then, place it on a section of the original cloud layer. The goal is to create additional textures quickly and efficiently!

Once that is done, change the blend mode of each individual layer to 'screen' or 'lighten.' This should help you reveal the original cloud layer underneath so you can better place your duplicated textures!

As you can see, I've duplicated it four times and placed the cloud layers in different spots where I want to have more texture.

3. Repainting the textures

Now that you have a lot of different textures from just one initial drawing, it's time to merge everything together!

From there, continue to smudge the individual cloud drawings into the original drawing. It's an easy step so long as the 'square' outlines of the smaller images can't be seen! Of course, you can also smudge in any additional clouds that seem out of place!

Depending on what blend modes you merged your cloud layers, it's best to glaze it over with a unifying color so the individual clouds don't look out of place.

Plus, if the original background layer is too dark or too light, now is the chance to experiment and correct the colors to your liking (as all the cloud textures should be in place by now)!

4. Light and shadows

These final steps of creating cloud drawings revolve around bring depth to a flat image. To do that, I recommend creating a light source first!

Normally, you can just use a soft round brush and paint in the central light source. However, let's try something different! If you're using Photoshop, go to the filters and create a lens flare effect.

If your program doesn't have that filter, it's still OK! Again, just paint in the light source and then use a dodge tool to bring out the colors of the light source!

Another step you can do is to duplicate the cloud layer and create a radial blur filter. This will create a tunnel vision effect originating from the light source. After that, just reduce the transparency of that layer so it shows the clouds underneath!

After that, continue using your dodge and burn tools to highlight or darken colors around the image as much as possible. You will be surprised by the types of textures you can create!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on making your own cloud drawings. The tools are basic but your artistic foundation is what is going to carry you!

When you have the opportunity, make sure to submit your artworks to the site galleries as I would love to see what you can come up with!

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