Landscape Essentials: Skies

Class Preview

Take your painting skills to breathtaking new heights! Capture the beauty of the sky at any time of day using acrylics or oil paints.

Composition & Perspective

Meet Kathleen Moore, your guide to creating compelling skyscapes in acrylic or oil. Kathleen introduces the critical concepts of composition and perspective and shares tricks for creating strong reference photos. A quick thumbnail sketch helps you plan your painting before transferring details to the canvas.

Painting the Sky: Color & Value

Why is the sky blue? Kathleen explains with a quick lesson on the properties of light and color, and helps you prepare your canvas before painting. Begin laying down pigment in gradated base layers, then transfer the details of your initial drawing from Lesson 1 using white chalk or soft pastel.

Different Kinds of Clouds

Go cloud-gazing with Kathleen to learn about types of clouds and how their appearance varies from the horizon to the heavens. Then prepare your palette to paint fluffy cumulous clouds and wispy cirrus clouds. Use transparent glaze to portray cloud shadows on the ground and add ground colors to the underside of your clouds.

Giving Dimension to Clouds

Give your clouds realistic form by adding dimension and shadows. Practice mixing and applying different color temperatures as you infuse your clouds with warm, cool and neutral tones. Then tackle the special halo and shadows of a backlit cloud with Kathleen’s guidance.

Stormy Skies

Stormy skies are dynamic and exciting — and fun to paint! Begin with a blue-gray ground, then pull color off the canvas to reveal the lighter areas of your sky. Kathleen shows how to add the shadows of storm clouds and the warmth of sunlight coming from behind them. Complete your stormy sky with wind and rain.

Sunrises & Sunsets

Kathleen explains the science behind the beautiful colors of sunrises and sunsets, and shows how to mix those atmospheric colors on your palette and recreate the sky’s radiance. Capture the sun’s golden halo and the brilliant sparkles on surrounding clouds.

Nocturne

You can paint a beautiful night sky, even using a daytime photo as a reference, simply by varying your palette. Kathleen wraps up your class by showing you how to turn a stormy seascape into a nighttime vista, complete with a subtle moon glow on the clouds and luminous stars.