Head in the CLOUDS

Does anyone have good tips on painting coulds on your backboards.

Bob, I've done is a couple of ways. Clouds painted on a damp blue sky and and on a dry blue sky. I really can't tell the difference, but I think I prefer a 'dry' blue sky. While painting clouds is seemingly the most daunting task it actually is not. It is like diving off the high platform for the first time. One you do it then no problem. Actually clouds are the simplest of endeavors. You need a palet, some water, a one inch brush for acrylics, white and black acrylic paint. Do the white parts of your clouds first. Wait ten minutes for some drying then mix up some white and black for a grey color and paint the clouds under belly grey and some grey streaks to highlight billows. Remember to blend in different colors of grey. Lighter near the tops of clouds and darker toward the bottoms. Best of all clouds in nature come in all sizes, shapes, and textures. You cannot go wrong! Somewhere there is a cloud like the one you painted. This is why it is so easy. Also remember to blend the blue sky lighter as you near the horizon. An all blue sky will render your backdrop 'toylike'. Us a bit of white every four inches and blend this in on semi-wet blue. Actually this correct blending is more difficult than clouds, as once you start with the blue paint you must begin blending in the white. You can always practice on a spare pieces of backdrop material before the real deal. I highly recommend this. Cheers, Jim CCRR:)

There are lots of people who think they know how to do it, but I didn't see a single good example yet. I met a young artist couple in Solvang, Ca a few years ago, they're painting sky for the living. I asked them about the secret. The answer was, "practice it, until your painting looks like the real thing... but we can do it for you anytime."

Lajos

Back when I had a room-sized layout, before starting construction I first painted the walls of the room with two shades of pale blue, blended to fade from lighter at the horizon to darker at the ceiling. Then I airbrushed on clouds, starting with a medium gray to render their shadowed lower sides, then white for the rest. I deliberately made then soft and diffuse, so as not to detract from the layout. The only image I have of that sky is an ancient reject slide, which as you can see is loaded with dirt and scratches, so you'll have to pretend the backdrop is clean; you can sort of get an idea of how amorphous the cloud effects are.



For my little James River Branch, I've been using poster prints mounted on Foamcore. I have a few different images so that I can change the mood. However, my favorite of the collection is the more amorphous one (#2), because it doesn't detract from the layout as much, and I don't use the first one at all any more. I tend to find that bright colors and sharply-defined clouds can be a distraction, especially when they are photographs, because they are absolutely realistic, whereas modeling is not, and the clouds only serve to make the layout less realistic rather than more. Modeling is a form of impressionistic art, so clouds that evoke realism, as opposed to being photo-realistic, and that fade softly into the background, work with layouts instead of against them.







Socalz44 wrote:

Best of all clouds in nature come in all sizes, shapes, and textures. You cannot go wrong!

I beg to differ: it is altogether too easy to go wrong. Cartoon-style white cottonball clouds painted onto a brilliant Kodachrome-blue backdrop not only detracts from the layout, but makes otherwise decent modeling look worse instead of better. As Lajos suggests, success comes with practice; you can't expect to score a home run on your backdrop the first try.

Some modelers choose not to render clouds at all, but instead paint their backdrop a very pale blue-grey to suggest a slightly-overcast sky. Not only does this avoid any distractions from the layout, but it also tends to work much better with artificial lighting. Consider that all too often modelers will paint sharply-lit clouds on a background for a layout that's lit with fluorescent lights, which cast diffuse, non-directional light on the layout; the two just don't work together.

Bob,

I've got a huge sky to paint in the coming months. Here's a photo of the special L-shaped canvas with a rounded inside corner that was delivered this past week...



At this point, I'm quite terrified of painting this huge canvas, but I must remember that some of it will be covered with foreground scenery. I'll be using artist's acrylic paints and large brushes to get the blues in the sky right.

The first thing to do when painting skies is to find several photos of them so you can look at what the real thing looks like. Study them and choose which types of clouds you want in your sky.

You might want to Google "how to paint sky" as well as go to Youtube and search there. Here's a YouTube video of someone painting a fabulous sky using acrylic (water based) paint. Here is a simpler sky painting video , which might be more useful

I suggest that you try painting a few skies before doing the one for your layout. Practicing will get you tuned into how the colours, paint and brushes work. I intend to practice a lot before going near my layout's canvas, and even, then, if it doesn't come out very well, I can always paint over it and begin again.

Let us know about your progress

Well, I need to back off a little bit. After seeing David's wall painting, there is (was?) one credible home made sky backdrop. And I know exactly what made his painting credible. He did it based on the real thing. Most of the model railroaders -sadly- model their scenes based on photos of various sources and "how to" books and articles. They like it, because it looks good, and easy to do it. The results? I understand, technical things, like locomotives, railroad cars, structures difficult to have handy, documents, like drawings, photographs are necessary. Still, seeing and remembering the real thing is a huge contributor to the quality of the model. But scenery and the sky? Walk outside and look. The sky, the trees and bushes, the grass and the weed, the pond and the creek are there within the reach. Take the Woodland Scenics scenery book with you and judge it for yourself. Take a photograph or painting of the sky outside and compare it to the real sky. It's OK, but not even close. Personally, after being model railroader for about a half century, I admit, there are still a lot to learn, but at least, I acknowledge it. So I keep learning, practicing and experimenting. And this is my advise for all of you who want to improve.

Lajos

Thanks, Lajos. I did indeed use some reference photos while I worked. Even when we have a strong image in our mind's eye, it's not always that reliable, even for things as basic as clouds. I did my best to clean up the slide so you can get a better sense of how it looked. And yes, it's past tense; the layout is no more, sorry to say.

Also, along the left side of the photo (above the two taller buildings) is the corner of the room; I rounded the corner with a curved piece of masonite nailed right to the wall; wall compound was applied along the edges of the masonite to blend it in with the rest of the wall.

Thanks to everyone for your tipz. I'll try some practice clouds and see what works for me.

Bob,

Over the past few months, I've been VCR recording and watching Yarnell's Art - FAQ page on PBS. Of the painters that PBS showcases, this fellow is the best teacher for the kind of background I'm looking forward to painting. Here is the show's program guide so you can tape it for your own possible learning. While not everything this teacher is painting will be relevent for your sky, his techniques are definitely worth studying.

Here's a photo of the backgound I'll keep on hand for when I work on my canvas.
Important elements of this photo:

- the farther away mountains are the paler blue they become, even though they are treed
- the closer to the horizon the sky is, the paler blue it is