How to Paint a Mural- Step Six- What Do Clouds Look Like?

After all the time I spent on the sky, I was pretty ready to push through into clouds.  Perhaps I learned a little something from all those mess-ups, because this process went faster.  Perhaps it was just because the space covered was so much smaller.

Anyways, I now know that the paint is darker when dry than it is when wet.  I also know to make test patches and let them dry before painting a whole area.  I also know that things are paler, greyer, and browner/ more yellowy the closer they get to the horizon.  I also knew that it was better to do some research before I started.  Even so, things didn't go perfectly. 

My first pass ended up with clouds that had shadows that were too dark and too blue, and with highlights that were too yellow.  So, as with all these stages, I went outside and spent a lot of time looking at and studying clouds.  I surfed the web and looked at various images.  I watched more youtube tutorials.

Here's some closeups of the clouds.  Things look a bit richer and darker in color in person.

BTW, these tutorials by muraljoe on youtube are a life saver.  He's amazing.  Very articulate and a good teacher.  Well worth checking out if you want a lot of pointers of how to paint murals.

Here's the video I watched repeatedly while learning to paint clouds-

As well as this one, which discusses how they look when up above-