![Picture](/uploads/2/5/9/5/25957820/1391834125.png)
For the past few days, I have been working on painting the clouds and blending them into the background. For the shadows, I used a dark magenta and purple. With a smaller brush and with barely any paint on it, I made very short paint strokes in a dabbing motion. I wanted to make the darker shades of the clouds fade so I dabbed some paint into the sky. That way, the clouds would look more realistic. I didn't want the colors to stand out so boldly, so a lot of times I would use my ring finger to sort of smooth out the paint and create a hazy effect. I also tried to blend out the light, bottom layers of the clouds that I had painted earlier, since they seemed too bright. I dabbed a little bit of the sky color on the bottoms of the clouds to soften the lines and make them appear more natural. I tried to make them look more dispersed into the sky by blending the cloud colors into the background. As for the clouds closer to the mountains, I think I will just let them be and start on the water next time. Once I see the other components of my painting come together, I will be able to decide exactly how I want everything to look.