How to Paint Clouds

You'll need acrylic paint in a sky blue (Laura uses Apple Barrel Moody Blue), white craft paint, paper or canvas taped down to a hard board, and three brushes - a wide flat for the background, a small mop brush for shaping the cloud, and a small filbert brush for highlights.

Tape the edges of your paper down to a board so the paint doesn't curl or bleed past where you want it. Squeeze out a generous puddle of each paint color - acrylics dry fast, and running out mid-cloud forces you to mix more, which never matches the first batch.

Load the wide flat brush with sky blue and cover the entire paper with two coats. Work in long horizontal strokes so the brush marks read as sky rather than texture - vertical streaks look like rain.

Don't wait for the first coat to dry. Apply the second coat right on top while the first is still wet. The paint should look uniform with no gaps, and the surface should still be glossy and damp when you finish.

While the blue is still wet, dip a smaller mop brush into white paint and dab the rough cloud shape onto the paper. Don't try to outline a hard edge - just a fluffy blob slightly off-center.

The wet blue underneath blends with the white at the edges automatically, so you don't have to worry about hard borders right now. Get the general shape down with light pressure and short, swirling strokes.

Wipe a clean mop brush on a cloth so it's almost dry. Sweep it lightly along the underside of the cloud using small swirling motions. The dry brush picks up just enough white to fade the bottom edge into the blue sky.

Keep some of the dark blue showing through at the bottom of the cloud. That darker zone is the cloud's shadow - leaving it visible is what makes the cloud look three-dimensional instead of flat.

Once the first cloud layer has dried (a few minutes for acrylics), switch to a small filbert brush. Load it with pure white and dab brighter highlights along the top of the cloud where light would naturally hit.

Work in small swirls, not lines. Cover only the top third of the cloud - leave the middle and bottom alone. The bright top against the shadow at the bottom is the contrast that sells the illusion.

Wipe the filbert brush clean and run it lightly across the edges of the highlight to fade the bright spots into the rest of the cloud. The transition from bright top to shadowed bottom should feel gradual.

For the finishing touch, drag a few thin streaks of white off to one side to make wispy trails. Don't overdo this - one or two trails is enough. The biggest mistake at this stage is overworking, so put the brush down before you're tempted to touch it again.