How to paint skies

Here is an explanation of some tricks to paint skies using watercolour

 Blue Sky: On the palette dilute enough phthalo green blue shade with phthalo blue red shade to cover the whole sky area and then some. Apply to horizon area, then on the palette, dab in some phthalo blue red shade to make it more blue, do not add more water at any point. If you practice using this method it is possible to create a near-perfect cyan to blue colour fade with no perceptible brush marks. For sun, leave a circle of paper showing, with a corona of slightly yellowish or greyish surrounding it. For style, I sometimes add a thin strip of indo blue to the top of the painting just to mimic the Japanese technique.

 

 

Example of blue sky: Rise of the Apartments

 Blue Sky with clouds: Give the sky area a very dilute medium-watery layer of yellow ochre. At the right moisture level paint around the cloud shapes using the method mentioned above for painting a blue sky. If the page is still moist you can add the shadows for the cloud, if it has dried then add a thin layer of pure water to the cloud area. One way to make cloud shadow is by mixing indo blue (PB60) with perylene maroon (PR179), then adjusting with yellow ochre (PY43) if a warmer grey is needed. There are many other combinations to make the cloud shadows, and other blue paints might work in the sky itself such as cobalt blues. 

Example of blue sky with clouds: Sidewalk Sales

Overcast sky: basically the same as the previous instructions, but there is little to no blue. Often there are thin layers of blue on overcast days that can be applied last with some indo or phthalo blue. If it is pure overcast, then very thin layers of various colours can be added to create a shimmering effect. 

Example of overcast sky: View from Fur Trading Post

Night Sky: The essential mixture is indo blue (PB60) with pyrol orange (PO73). There are no substitutes for these two paints, in equal quantity they make an early night sky, with more orange it appears as dusk, with more blue it appears as late night sky. Adding perylene green (PBk31) and quin magenta (PV19) will make a near jet-black sky but still retains the blueish purplish tint. For stars, paint around small points of white paper. For moon, leave a circle of paper, with a corona of slightly lighter sky around it. 

 

Example of night sky: Pizza Welat

Sunset: At the horizon the sunset may appear to be pale yellow, yellow-orange, orange or coral red depending on time and conditions. As it radiates outwards the colour can change to more yellow, greyish cyan, and greyish blue. It is a difficult colour transition to observe and even harder to paint. Clouds will take a greyish magenta or amber yellow glow, with grey-blue or purplish shadowing. There is no set formula for painting a sunset, you have very little time and need to go with instinct. Remember to paint it brighter and with more contrast than you think is necessary, because on location your eyes are adjusted for low light during the sunset. The rest of the scene must be middle to low value (dark) to create the illusion of the sunset. 

Example of Sunset: Sunset on NDG