For this composition we have a big dramatic sky and a largely insignificant foreground.

Notice the clouds are white on top and darker underneath. Notice also they are smaller close to the horizon where they are further away. Try to give your clouds some lost and some found edges. This means blending.

Blending: wait until the paint has dried a bit - the shine will be disappearing from the paper. If you try to blend when the paint is still very wet you will just move the pigment around and you will either soak it all up on the brush or fail to get rid of the hard edges. When the shine has almost disappeared touch the edges with a clean brush with very little water.

Colours: Ultramarine blue, Raw sienna, Madder lake, Paynes grey

Big sky clouds sketch    big sky clouds1 
 Notice the horizon line is 1/5 way from bottom  

 Mix Ultramarine with paynes grey. Mix lots of paint

Start at the top with one stroke across the page. Dip

brush in water but don't swirl it around paint second

stroke just touching the bottom edge of the first

stroke. Continue until the horizon line. You should

have almost no pigment in the brush by this time.

Work fast with kitchen paper to dab out the tops

of the clouds, then work down. You have to press

quite hard. Soften some of the edges.

Dry the painting

 big sky clouds2a    big sky clouds2

Turn board up-side-down and paint the top right

corner with exactly the same colour as in step 1.

Blend the edge so you don't get a line. This is just

to darken the right side

 

 Dry the painting. Mix a basic grey using red+blue+yellow

paint in the clouds with this grey adding more blue or

red allowing the paint to mix on the paper. then blend

the edges using the method descibed above.

Use the grey + yellow to roughly paint the foreground

 big sky clouds final