- Hi, this is Kath Macaulay.

Welcome, with two clouds.

It's our next thing.

It's fun.

I get asked all the time how to do them.

They are done with water.

(upbeat music) And it's fun.

It's fast.

Didn't get enough there.

There you go.

It's the beginning of clouds.

Come join us.

You'll be amazed to see how easy they really are and how to build them so that they work.

- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided by Sedona Hypnosis, LLC, healing your past, creating your future, Muriel Walsh Estate Sales, representing people is our business, and by viewers like you.

- Clouds are just too much fun.

Clouds are water vapor, so they're a natural for watercolor.

There's almost no color up there.

Now we have misconceptions.

This came from grade school.

This is another area that people ask me about over and over.

And so it's figured, okay, we'll show this one.

I'm gonna use a photograph for a reason because it sort of leads into the rest.

In the photograph, we've got cumulus clouds.

We also have darks.

Let's start with the cumulus clouds.

That's the easier part.

So in grade school you were taught to make a cumulus cloud like this.

Yuppa, sorta like that.

It's got a bottom.

And I like to have a little extra ink over somewhere where it's not gonna be in the way, which I use as what I call a borrow pit.

That's from a place from which you can borrow ink.

Now the way it was done in grade school, because you're probably set up with this in your mind, and it's hard until you get to playing with clouds to not pay attention to what you were carefully taught.

So you were taught to pick up a fairly light blue and go around the line, which you had on the paper, like this.

And it comes out looking a heck of a lot like a cutout.

And then the bottom's more fun.

Actually that would've been one fun if I'd kept doing it, but let's not.

Here comes the bottom, now I've got more ink here, so I've got more fun.

What you can do with this is, this is a way to make rain.

That was just my finger.

You could do it with a brush.

It all came off in the paper.

The finger's clean.

Okay, that's the way you were taught in grade school.

Here's a cloud for what it really is.

It's water vapor.

So now pick up the exactly the same color and introduce your cloud.

Doesn't matter quite how you do it because you can change it.

It's watercolor.

In fact, I learned from the curator of a major watercolor collection that you can change a watercolor for up to 20 years, at which time it becomes one with the paper.

Now, do I want more pigment?

This is something you wanna watch.

If you want to have more pigment and you want a sharp edge, which some cumulus clouds have a bit of, try to put it on now.

While it's wet, it's not gonna hold.

Wait a while until it gets tacky.

I think you can understand that one, in other words, a bit drier.

Then when you come in and put an edge on, it will hold.

So this is still flowing.

But what can you do with this?

Remember I put a little bit of a borrow pit over here?

'Cause I didn't put a black line under.

There it is.

There's that black.

Do you want it at all in the cloud?

So now you begin to play.

And of course, this one you could do this to also, which is really fun.

But this cloud looks more like a cloud because it's just water vapor.

It's not solid.

That's solid, that's a cutout.

Try to get the feeling of the difference.

The cloud is water to push around and play.

Should I want this to change at this point, I can change it.

There you go.

Should I wanna carry it out further, you can change it in any way you want.

Should you wanna make a lift in the middle of it, squish the water out of the brush.

Whoops, I spilled some.

That's gonna give you another texture.

(producer speaks indistinctly) I spilled some water and that's gonna give us another texture, I'm not ready quite to show that one to you yet, but if I wanted to, let's say, change this edge, I can lift part of that cloud out.

You are not stuck with watercolor.

You've been told that if you make a mistake, you've gotta throw it out.

No, you make a mistake, you go right on through.

You either hide that mistake or distract from the mistake so somebody doesn't see it, in either case.

But you're certainly rarely stuck with a mistake.

I'd say placement on the paper might be it.

Now I'm gonna tear this out, normally I'd folded under.

But I wanna go right away to something else with the clouds.

Another thing that people do when they're first starting, and I'm gonna use the same photo again for a reason.

See the darks in those clouds?

Somebody who doesn't know will put pen lines in for those darks.

Lines don't belong in the sky.

So let me show you what happens when you try to deal with those lines.

I have to say that I know this pretty well.

If you go over 'em fast, even then, it didn't stay too much as a line.

What you're gonna have to do is go dark enough with this stormy sky that you don't see that you had lines in there to start with.

So you're going to add enough, and then start piling in clouds.

Watercolor's forgiving.

(chuckles) Forgive and forget.

Now that one is isolated, so make that part of the sky stormier.

Don't give up on it.

Up here, I've got some purple.

I want it to be grayer.

If I had a borrow pit here, I'd pick it up and use it, but I don't.

What would happen if I add a bit of yellow ochre to this?

I got a gray.

Now add it in.

Can you make it work?

And if you can't make it work, did you learn something?

Learning is the best part.

And clouds, nobody knows what you saw.

Nobody can say you saw a certain cloud.

And in my book, nobody knows what you think you saw, and that's a whole other world.

Now, once, if you're using a water soluble pen, once it has dried, it's not moving.

So if you wanted to move this, you should have thought about it earlier.

Now what you get to do is figure out how to use it.

Make it blend in, make it work.

I'm gonna little bit more blue in this mix.

Notice that the stuff on the lid of the box can be pushed around pretty endlessly.

Actually, it's not bad.

It's not really bad at all, but I'm gonna darken it a bit more anyway for the heck of it.

And just, what can you do next?

If you're gonna be playing with clouds, learn to play.

Now, quite frankly, if this were my cloudy sky, at this point, I'd be pretty happy with it.

Gonna go a little bit farther.

Let's say you've got some really white clouds coming up out of this.

Now what about what's above it?

Is it a blue?

Is it that blue?

If it's the sky, it could be.

And the sky may not be as intentionally blue as you think.

When you see really white cumulus clouds against the sky, try to remember that the sky is your source of light.

It's probably the lightest thing in an entire landscape, except on a foggy day, and then you really can't see it anyway.

But anytime that there's light coming through, it's gonna be the lightest thing.

So you're not gonna go to a deep, deep, deep blue probably in the upper sky.

I'm working on sneaking up on this.

Why not?

It's mine.

I can do anything I want, and so can you.

This just might work.

And when you're playing with clouds, that is an attitude to have.

Pick it away.

Okay.

Rather interesting.

Let the water show you.

Let the clouds form or not.

Maybe you have bad days.

Hey, that's just the same as that.

It's a triangle, not a good form.

There is a little bit of design, but the technical stuff, I don't go into the technical stuff when I'm teaching because when you're ready, you'll go find books and get it.

But for the most part, what you really need is miles on a brush.

This is gonna do something else, maybe not very dramatically.

I wanna push it further because I don't want this side to be identical to that side.

That's just design.

Next, as you're going over the dome of the sky, it gets darker, it gets deeper blue.

You're looking through less and less atmosphere as you go up.

What you're looking for, through when there are clouds, it's breaking that atmosphere and you don't see it.

So up here, it's probably gonna be darker.

Your best blue in this set is a combination of the two blues that you have.

Where am I gonna put it in this dirty paint set?

How about right down here?

And once in a while, I clean it up, but I'm more likely to use everything.

Want a little bit more.

This happens to be, people ask, "What color are you using?"

This is ultramarine blue.

It's a very true dark blue.

I bet it's too strong.

Even for the dome in this picture, that is too strong.

So what do you do about it?

Move it.

And people say you can't.

Oh yes, you can.

How much?

I don't know.

(chuckles) Cut yourself some slack, for goodness sakes.

You don't know everything right away.

Notice how much lighter that is and carry that up.

Now maybe I want a little bit of that.

You see this tiny bit of color in the box?

That's good.

That's good color.

That will darken it a tad, not a whole lot.

Now something I want to show you, and it happens very, very, very slowly.

I'm gonna get what's called a bloom, and it might be something you absolutely want.

I happen to love them.

There's pigment here, there's water here.

This takes a long time to work.

It takes it all the way until it gets dry before that's finished.

But if I'm lucky, I'm gonna get a cloud edge out of bloom that's gonna be dynamite.

So while I'm waiting for that, I wanna show you a bit more about clouds.

I mean they're just, they're fun.

This is probably one of the most fun things you'll ever do with watercolor.

What's under these clouds?

What's down here?

Well, this is kind of interesting.

I didn't plan this.

See the light area there?

Why wouldn't that be snowcap mountains?

Hmm, why not?

If it were, then would the mountains continue down here?

This, by the way, is one of the most playful things you can get into.

This may or may not work, but let's see if it does.

Let's just see.

Now that edge, if the clouds are on the edge, this part's gonna be solid.

I've gotta get rid of part of that edge.

Maybe it won't work.

Maybe it will work.

I hope.

Okay.

Okay, there's part of the land right there.

And I can use this stuff that's in the lid to continue.

That's almost a shelf of a different color.

Ooh.

Okay, that cloud has invaded the mountain.

Come right up it.

If it's wet, you can come right up into it because the cloud would invade across it.

That's kind of cool, isn't it?

You could plant it, but now that could be snow on this mountain, that's just playing.

When you were a kid, you probably imagine things that were in the clouds.

Now you can make things that are in the clouds.

I mean, you don't have to be imagining them.

You can do it.

What happens if this is there?

What if it continues here, the same mountain range?

What if?

I don't know.

Oh, this is total coincidence.

There was a bit of of brown on the edge.

Watch this mountain change as it gets closer.

Getting into a warmer color as it gets closer to you.

Then over in here, would you have that same warmer color?

That was something that was left in the top of the box.

Maybe, maybe not.

Now I get bored very easily, very, very quickly.

I have no patience whatsoever.

So I think, actually what this looks like, it looks like the edge of the mountain right there, why not?

So that's snow part of the way down.

I guess that could happen.

You know?

It's all what you think you see.

I love to emphasize this because many people go out and they try to copy what they see just the way it is.

That's a camera.

Take your cell phone with you.

If you feel you have to get that exact image, then take a picture.

Now you've got it.

Now let it go, and now begin to play.

Now this doesn't have any real anchor in it.

I'm gonna show you a little bit of difference there.

This photo does.

The bottom of the photo has these mountains in the background, things in the foreground, hence, it looks totally plausible.

In driving to come to film this, we went through New Mexico and there were magnificent clouds.

This is out the car window.

This works.

That's wet on both sides, water.

This didn't work so well.

That's added when the under part was dry.

Same with this, but nonetheless, this is all playing with looking out the car window.

I was the passenger, not the driver.

(chuckles) I don't recommend trying to do this while you're driving anymore than trying to text, really.

But if you're the passenger, one of the things that doing it out of the car forces is you've gotta go really fast because it's moving, it's not gonna be there very long.

The plants at the bottom, doesn't matter how good or bad they are, they help anchor the sky.

Now you can do a straight cloudscape if you want to, that's fine, but this will help anchor it.

Oh, and here's something else I wanted to show you.

See this slight yellow cast?

Well, there are only a few yellows you can use to get away with that.

I tried for five days going to the rooftop of a local store.

We had clouds that week in Tucson, Arizona.

And I tried to mimic what I saw in the clouds.

A big question was if you've got yellow in the clouds and you've got blue in the sky, how come you don't get green?

So I'm gonna try very light yellow.

I had a choice of many, many yellows.

There's a very light yellow.

And I did this for quite a while, like most of a week before getting the answer.

And then you got blue in the sky, right?

There goes the blue.

It's already happening.

You see the green?

You try to play that blue into that yellow cloud, you're gonna get green.

And I don't remember seeing green in the clouds.

There's another yellow.

I'll use the same blue.

This is cerulean blue.

Forget that people ask what color I'm using.

Okay, notice how loose that is, just pushing it around.

Yellow ochre, a very calm and yellow.

I only want a little.

Yellow ochre neutralizes blues, and they go gray.

And you actually can put it in a cloud and have the sky right by it, and you're gonna wind up with the gray instead of an intense green.

And it's gonna look normal.

These two are both running together.

That's fine.

Now I mentioned, I think I did a little bit of the dark sky because of putting ink in it.

One of the things with the watercolor, this one is pretty dry, no problem.

No problem at all.

I can tuck it under.

Oh wait a minute.

I did wanna show you the bloom.

That one's not working right.

I'm gonna do one on purpose.

I can tuck it under, but now let's say I wanna put this on the table and it's wet.

If I put this on the table and it's wet, and it's your white linen tablecloth, I just wrecked it.

Put something uneven under it.

Drop the page onto that.

It's not touching the table.

It won't hurt the sketch.

It won't hurt the table.

Don't wiggle too much over here, but that's gonna work okay.

I did wanna show you a bloom because blooms are such fun.

So start with some pretty good pigment.

Get that out of the way.

It's actually casting a shadow.

Start with some pretty good pigment.

That's a really dark pigment to choose, but it's fun.

Here's another one.

What I want to do is introduce a drop of water into this.

Now put it over here.

If I have enough time, and usually the water is next to the place where you have the pigment.

But this is working.

It's exactly what I wanted it to do.

It takes a minute.

It's the beginning of a bloom.

Blooms are fabulous in clouds.

They're just fun to have in clouds.

Now watch these edges form.

As the water spreads, it carries the pigment out.

Then as the water dries, and I'm in a fairly humid space here, so it may not dry enough where you can see it perform.

But as it dries, it drops the pigment on the edges 'cause the pigment's heavier.

So you're gonna see it over here, and it's happening over here.

In any kind of water, these are delightful to play with.

They're wonderful in clouds.

I did it very dark and it wouldn't be this dark, but still watch that edge.

That edge will keep forming.

It's very slow.

So you have to take the time to let it happen.

It's not gonna happen right away.

But when it does happen, if it's in clouds or in dashing water, it's a really fun thing to have in your box of things you can do.

Another one that's rather unusual, and I don't really have control of this yet in the sky, John Sing-, well, the 1800s, people used wax as a resist in watercolor.

Somehow it went completely out of vogue in the United States, so it's not done by watercolorists anymore.

But let's say I wanted to retain a white.

Oh, and Sargent used a candle stub.

Crayons were available at the time, but he did use a candle stub.

So first I pushed hard.

Now I'm trying to push very lightly.

And now I'll show you what happens.

And you can use this for all kinds of things.

Go back to my sky color and put in a sky.

Whoop.

And look at the filaments of the clouds.

That is a wax resist.

Now, I could probably pick it up here a bit because I know there was wax there, but I'd rather like it just the way it is.

Play around with it.

It's simply a a cheap white candle.

Don't use beeswax.

What's happening is, this is cold-pressed paper.

There are three papers.

There's hot paper.

It's super smooth, like your computer paper.

It's used by illustrators, portrait artists, people who wanna hold detail.

Cold press, it's the metal watercolor paper.

So the paper is a little bit lumpy, and the wax is sticking to the tops of the lumps, not in the crevices.

Then there's rough paper.

It's very rough.

My pen doesn't work on it because it's too rough for the pen.

So this is cold pressed, and you can see how it leaves that wonderful scattered effect, like clouds.

What fun to play with.

What fun to show somebody else how to play with it.

By the way, that was clean up.

That was just done.

And can I put this brush away?

Yes, put it away wet.

Travel brushes all have holes in the back end, so they dry out.

And I've never ever had one foul up except for the one I put in my mouth.

Now as you watch this, it's still working.

Because I'm in a humid climate, it'll take it a long time.

In a dry climate like Tucson, it's very, very quick.

So with clouds, just play around.

What can you get?

Put the color in and move it.

Have fun.

There was some wax there, I betcha.

Look at that resist.

It's gorgeous.

Have a wonderful time with clouds.

But you do it yourself.

You experiment.

Look at a cloud and try to get it.

At first they'll evade you and then you will get them, and you'll be really amazed and have a lot of fun with them.

And anchor them with something at the bottom.

I think I have one here with a good anchor.

This one's got a really good anchor.

So what are we gonna, and that was the pen.

What are we gonna do next?

I think next we're going to understand when to hit the pen, when to get a line, how to get rid of that line when you want something soft like this.

It's really the background of everything in pocket sketching.

It's the skeleton of the sketch, and it's your entire value scale, your light and dark scale.

So we'll learn next's how to work that so that you understand it and you can control it to where you like it.

By the way, I didn't notice.

This is fun.

Look where the clouds cross the mountain.

(cheerful music) The clouds.

Oh, you have to say they're fun.

And that's a bloom in the bottom.

Anyway, (chuckles) come join me for seeing how the pen works and what to do with it.

And happy sketching.

Want to learn more about the wonderful world of pocket sketching?

Then visit my website at pocketsketching.com.

We have so much there for you to explore, including free tips and training videos, the pocket sketching supplies, photo galleries, and how to access additional training.

All this and more is available at pocketsketching.com.

Learn enough to play for a lifetime.

- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided by Sedona Hypnosis, LLC, healing your past, creating your future, Muriel Walsh Estate Sales, representing people is our business, and by viewers like you.

(upbeat music)