The weather can strongly affect the atmosphere of a painting of an outdoor scene. So today I’m going to talk about how i draw the weather in my paintings!

How Color can affect a painting.

It’s always important to pick good colors for your paintings because they can be used to define the atmosphere and the feel of your drawing.

 

Colors are often associated with emotions so they can impact the story-telling of the painting and you can use them to describe a feeling to the audience.

With the help of color psychology you can use colors and the emotions they’re affiliated with to make the context of your painting clearer.

 

Here are some exemple of colors and emotions they’re associated with;

 

-RED:

love

romance

gentle

warmth

comfort

energy

excitement

intensity

life

 

-BLUE:

calmness

serenity

cold

uncaring

wisdom

loyalty

truth

focused

 

-YELLOW:

happiness

laughter

cheery

warmth

optimism

hunger

intensity

frustration

 

Here are some examples of a painting in different settings;

Different color palettes can evoke different feelings in your paintings so it’s important you pick the right colors.

You can find the meanings of other colors online for when you want to use them to evoke a specific feeling in your paintings.

You also need to keep in mind when painting a background that the sky influences the color of objects underneath it.

Here i drew balls of the same color under different colored skies, the first being at sunrise, the second is on an overcast day and the last one being when the sun starts to set.

 

 

 

The sky’s color changes depending on the time of the day.

The sky will look different depending on what time is is during the day.

These are some sky gradients from different times of the day.

As you can see, around the times the sky starts to set, the colors get more saturated and intense because the sun ( which is the light source for clouds) is getting closer to the horizon.

Using these sky gradients can be used to indicate the time in your paintings.

 

Clouds are not actually white , they just appear white when they are under a blue sky, clouds are actually translucent.

Clouds are just water droplets and ice crystals floating, which is why they change color depending on the color of the sky.

Clouds are not Flat, they’re 3D objects so naturally light can bounce off on them and create shadows.

The colors of the cloud will depend on where the light source is as well as the color of the sky. If the sun is setting , the clouds will most likely be illuminated from under and if the sun is high in the sky it will shine on the top of the cloud.

Clouds also have many different forms but we won’t go over them today but keep in mind you can use the shapes of clouds to your advantage.

You can for example guide the eyes of the viewer to a specific area in your painting by using the clouds.

You also need to keep in mind that since clouds are 3D objects their shape will vary depending on the perspective of the scene.

Don’t draw them always flat.

Painting a cold scene

Now that you know a bit more about colors, we can start applying what we saw before to our paintings.

First of all you can decide whether the dominent colors in your painting will be cold colors, warm colors or neutral colors. It’s up to you depending on what you wanna convey in the painting.

Let’s start with a simple scene where there’s snow.

It’s important you start putting the base colors down , it will help make it easier to refine after.

This is not supposed to be a very detailed scene but with the use of gradients and textured brushes you can get to a satisfying result without having to do too much work.

The atmosphere here is pretty calming since the colors here are on the colder side and are not too saturated so it gives off a calm feeling.

 

Since the luminosity is also very low, it’s a good way to avoid painting unnecessary details that would end up being blended in the shadows anyway.

 

Let’s paint another scene with a similar color palette but with a different weather.

Again, put the base colors down as well as the basic shapes.

This is a beach where it could either be at dawn or dusk.

Then refine your painting a bit more.

I like using textured brush for when I’m too lazy to draw the details.

This is one of my favorite brushes but i recommended you use gouache brushes for painting backgrounds.

Then again if you want to change the color palette completely, you can use gradients. The way i do it is by duplicating my painting layer and apply a gradient to it and then you can set it to overlay, multiply etc.

By playing with gradients and blending modes you can get a result closer than what you want.

 

 

Now,Let’s draw a field with a main focus

I made a really primitive sketch to put down the base colors.

I then render it more and accentuate more on the colors and add contrast.

I also detail the sky so that it looks like a storm is coming or as if it’s going to rain.

I was really not satisfied with the color palette that looked too generic so I’m going to apply a gradient again.

I then reduce the opacity of the gradient and set it to color mode so that it looks more natural and I’m done.

Now the painting gives off a more peaceful feeling.

Painting a warm scene

Painting a scene where the colors are warmer can give off a totally different feeling, it can be used to indicate danger for example.

I’m going for a apocalyptic feel so I’m choosing colors close to orange and red.

Notice that since the sky is orange it will affect the color of objects on the ground, the trees for example are not really green per say but they appear that way in the context of this painting.

Then start rendering while still reminding myself that every object on ground is affected by the sky color.

To make the atmosphere a bit more serious I’ll make the sky even more contrasted with red.

In the painting there’s a body of water around the bridge so I’ll make the sky get reflected in it.

And that’s what i end up with after a bit more rendering.

 

 

 

 

Now let’s draw a neighborhood.

Here as you can see i wanted to show that a storm was approaching this neighborhood so the sky is very dark compared to the ground objects.

I wanted the drawing to be more contrasted so i made the scene warmer by using the correction layers.

You can see that the dominant colors are one the warmer side but the general feeling of the painting gives of colder vibes.

You can use colors like this in many different ways to express what you want.

And that’s the result, this is a pretty simple painting but i wanted to give off an uneasy feeling from this neighborhood by using clashing colors together.

The opposite is also true, here the colors are on the cold spectrum but by using very saturated and bright colors i can give a more joyful feeling to the painting.

Painting a Rainy scene

Painting rain is actually pretty easy , all you need is a rain brush.

This is the one i use , though there are free alternatives all over the assets or you can make your own.

I’m gonna be drawing a street so I’ll start with a basic sketch.

Then add the base colors. This scene is during night time and it’s raining so the colors won’t be too saturated, except for the reflections of various light sources in the scene.

When I’m done detailing the street I’ll start drawing the rain by using a parallel ruler.

With the rain brush i go all over the canvas , I’m adding more drops next to the floor lamp since the light coming from it will highlight the droplets near it. I’ll also paint droplets on the ground.

With the correction layers i also make the scene a bit colder.

Usually when it’s raining the colors will look desaturated and closer to gray since the sun is hidden behind clouds.

Now Lets change this drawing a bit, let’s change the sunny weather to thunder.

 

Since this is inside a building the sun is still able to illuminate the classroom but when it’s raining and the sun is absent light will dim.

First let’s change the sky through the windows to a way darker cloudy sky.

Then with correction layers I’ll change the overall colors to be more blue-ish and desaturated. With this weather since the sun is hidden the classroom will look way darker.

It wasn’t dark enough in the classroom to i changed it, then i added rain and thunder outside the window.

Then i will select the parts of the objects in the classroom that will be affected by the light source through the windows.

And i will lighten these selected areas with the glow dodge/lighten mode to make the scene more believable.

Let’s draw a snowy scene

Drawing a snowing scene is also pretty easy, here’s the snow brush i use below:

This is an image material i got from the assets and I’m going to use it to draw a scene where it’s snowing.

I colored it with pretty desaturated colors once again because of the snowy weather.

I then started placing the snow deposits on the scene. I used a cloud brush for this bit you can use pretty much any kind of brush.

Then i go all over with the snow brush.

I also blended the more far away houses in the sky with an airbrush because of atmospheric perspective and I’m done!

Extreme wheater

When it comes to extreme weather conditions like tornadoes for example it’s difficult to draw them form memory so i advise you always use references when you’re drawing something you’re not used to draw.

I’m putting down the basic colors and shapes of the painting.

I struggled a bit because i started drawing without references but after looking up pictures of tornadoes i could make it somewhat work.

I thought it looked boring so once again i used a gradient and put it to color mode.

Thanks for reading 💖

I hope this could help you if you were struggling with painting weather.

If you want to see more of my art i welcome you to my Instagram account;

See you next time !