How to Paint Night Sky Thunderstorms With Oils
Oil paints are known for their vibrantly rich colors and textures. Because of these characteristics, oil paints are ideal for painting landscapes and surreal images, realistic scenes and moody atmospheric pieces. Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh are two artists who used oils to their best advantage. Learn how to paint night sky thunderstorms with oils to create works of art worthy of hanging on any wall in your home.
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Instructions
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Use a medium brush to paint the base layer of your painting. Start with black and add the layers with long, smooth strokes. Continue to do this until you have covered your canvas in black.
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Layer strokes of gray across the black. This will serve to lighten up the black while still leaving the dark overall color. Use thick swipes of oil to create a texture.
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Add strokes of white to the black and gray. This will not only lighten the colors a little more, it will begin to add depth and create the stormy atmosphere you want to achieve. Use turpentine or some other thinner if you added too much paint and can't seem to lighten it.
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Do everything in layers. Oil paints dry very slowly, so if you put too much on, it is not difficult to take a layer off. You can also spread oils around to manipulate and create textures.
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Use gray paint to create dark clouds within the dark background. Use a medium brush and draw small u-shaped curves across the canvas to create the hard lines of clouds within the background.
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Add strokes of white to create the suggestion of lightning. The lightning doesn't need to be fully defined. Paint the lightning bolts ragged without creating hard lines. Use side strokes of the brush to give the appearance of wind or rain. The primary colors will be black, gray and white with touches of a dark blue to offset the other colors. Combine these colors and texture them by dabbing the oils with the tip of your brush and you'll end up with a moody storm piece in oils that you'll be proud to hang on your wall.
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