Aquarell cloud study: separate the lit and shaded planes of a white cloud

Clouds are not equal-sized white balls. Cumulus has clearer lit tops, dispersing edges and usually a flatter base. Paint one main cloud and one distant fragment with few colours, practising large forms, shaded planes and edges before countless tiny bulges.

Make sky part of the composition

Create a 1600×1000 pixel canvas with medium gray-blue. Place the main cloud left of centre, about 900 wide and 500 high, leaving ample right sky. Keep its base about 250 above the bottom. Put a distant cloud lower-right, no more than one-third as wide.

Limit colours to sky blue, warm white, pale blue-gray and medium blue-gray, with restrained warm light/cool shade. Separate cloud, sky and sketch. Build three overlapping masses: tallest centrally, broader left and lower right, clearly unequal rather than three identical cotton balls.

Paint the complete cloud silhouette first

Use a 120–180 pixel coverage brush at relatively high opacity for the warm-white silhouette. Give the top several rises and the base longer, flatter connections. Alternate major bulges with one or two small turns and some straighter stretches, not arcs everywhere. Make distant clouds thinner and flatter.

Zoom out: the white mass should look like cloud, not snow mountain or beads. Soften an overly pointed top and flatten the base if every edge undulates alike. Recognition begins with silhouette, not the count of small gray circles.

Follow cloud volume with shaded planes

With upper-left light, shade the main cloud’s lower right in pale blue-gray over roughly one-third to half. Use connected curved planes, not an outline ring. A pale-gray plane beneath the brightest rise can extend down-right, showing it in front of a rear mass.

Use medium blue-gray only at the base and two small hollows. Complete dark rings around every bulge make separate stones. Connect some gray planes and let others vanish. If too strong, compare reduced shadow-layer opacity before repainting.

Clear top, looser sides

Keep the main cloud’s upper-left lit edge clearer and fade less important right edges with pale gray near the sky colour. One or two broad low-opacity strokes suffice; repeated rubbing muddies it. Sky-colour notches can also loosen the contour.

No specific blur button or soft brush is required. Hard tips can make transitions with intermediate colours and varied edge fragments. Soften selected edges, not the whole perimeter equally. For edge choices, see Hard and soft stone-edge exercise; materials differ, but hierarchy decisions are similar.

Give the cloud base a stable shaded band

Paint a broad, gently uneven blue-gray base band, about 60 to 100 pixels wide, tapering at both ends. It is weaker light, not a black horizontal line. Let the lowest edge approach sky colour so the cloud hangs in air.

Reduce distant-cloud contrast: slightly dimmer highlights and shadows closer to sky. Two or three marks suffice, with softer edges than the main cloud. Equal brightness and size destroy distance. Remaining sky space need not be filled; it supports volume.

Shape clouds by painting the sky back in

If too round, stop adding internal gray. Use sky colour to remove a small edge section, then retain a broader rise. Change one spot and zoom out. Check tallest and side points; symmetry is unnecessary. Retain shadow direction so new bulges have volume. Sky actively shapes the cloud rather than merely filling the background.

Add only a few bright edges last

Add two or three near-white top highlights, each about 50 to 100 pixels long, without forming a ring. Concentrate brightness upper-left and retain lower-right shade. Hide the sketch and compare full view with a small thumbnail for unified volume and shadow direction.

Why does it look like candyfloss? Equal bulges, gray rings and no calm contour sections cause this. Remove small arcs, enlarge one dominant rise and connect shaded planes. Changing large shapes helps more than extra detail.

Why does the white cloud not look white enough? Check whether the sky is too pale. Similar surroundings leave little room to brighten the cloud. Darken the sky moderately, reduce base-gray coverage and reserve the brightest top rather than painting the whole cloud white.

Save the layered original and reuse the outline for sunset: pale peach light, gray-purple shade and unchanged values. Compare palette changes with Warm-and-cool still-life exercise, comparing neighbouring colours before adding many new ones.

Sources and applicable version

Based on Aquarell App Store description Based on public brushes, layers and colour controls, checked against version 1.0.5 on October 23, 2026. Cloud forms are manually painted; settings are starting points and interfaces may change.