Design your way

Friday, September 7, 2018

A clouds background is a great way to introduce a beautiful sense of calm to any website or even your own desktop. But most of you will use it as a texture in a project.

The sky is evocative of so many emotions, from tranquility to adventure, and anything that uses the sky as a background will automatically seem connected to nature.

If you choose the right sky background, you can have a truly unique look that takes advantage of the way the human brain works and how we perceive the sky. There’s a timelessness to a clouds background, too, meaning that it will be a good fit for years to come without getting swept away by new trends.

This is why many designers seek to include a clouds background in their projects. There is also a lot of opportunities to add a certain personality and look to a sky background.

With the newer design effects that are found in many graphic design programs, your vector clouds can have a unique and striking look all their own. The result will be highly naturalistic. You can make modifications to everything from colors to dimensions, making a clouds background that is a great fit for your project.

How do you make a clouds background? Do you just make a sky background, then spam clipart clouds all over it? While it’s not quite that simple, it is an easy process that takes little time to master!

Clouds background images

How to create a quick and easy clouds background in Adobe Illustrator

With the help of the Scatter Brush and the Blending Mode Screen, you can create a tranquil (or not so tranquil) cloudy sky background in Adobe Illustrator. We also included instructions for drawing a bird silhouette in this tutorial to help you add a bit of life to your clouds background if the situation calls for it.

1. Create the Background

Use the Rectangle Tool (M) to draw a rectangle with the same dimensions as the Artboard. Fill it in using the Gradient Tool. You can use standard Swatch Libraries of Adobe Illustrator to accomplish this step if you like. Go to Window > Swatch Libraries > Gradients > Sky. Select any sample you want. Set the angle of 90 degrees in the Gradient panel.

2. Create a Scatter Brush

In order to create a Scatter Brush, you will need to draw a circle. Use the Ellipse Tool (L) to do this. Then drag and drop your circle into the Brushes panel. Create a Scatter Brush. Use random settings.

3. Draw the Shape of the Clouds

Step 1

Use the Paintbrush Tool (B) and select your newly made Scatter Brush. Draw few different lines in shapes of the clouds. Flow with it. Clouds have organic shapes, and it’s easy to fix mistakes.

Step 2

Select all of the cloud shapes you have drawn and go to Object > Expand Appearance to transform brushes into objects. Do not forget to Ungroup (Control + Shift + G) these cloud shapes.

4. Add a Fluffy Effect by Using Gradients

Step 1

Time to change the size of the clouds. You can make them smaller or larger as you desire. When done, select all circles and fill them. Use the black and white Radial Gradient.

Step 2

Next, you need to go to the Transparency panel and set the Blending Mode to Screen. Group (Control + G) the shapes of each of your clouds. When you use a black fill with Blending Mode Screen, it will become completely transparent. This means that this process will only show the white of the gradients. When used with a group of white gradients, it will make for a fluffy, blurred effect which you usually have to create by using the many raster Blur effects. However, since these are gradients within your vector clouds, the fluffy, blurred effect is entirely vector.

5. Create a Cloudy Sky

Step 1

Create a few copies of your clouds. To make it faster, use the hotkeys Control + C and Control + V.

Step 2

Create more copies. Select some of them and go to the Transparency panel. Set their Opacity between 60% and 80%. This will give make some of the clouds seem more distant than others.

6. Draw a Bird (A Bonus!)

Step 1

Create the framework of the bird:

The body and the head will be drawn with the Ellipse Tool (L)
The beak will be drawn with Pen Tool (P)
The tail and wings will be drawn with the Pencil Tool (N)
Step 2

Use the Width Tool (Shift + W) to add some more thickness to the left wing. Pull the path in the middle and the Width Tool will thicken the shape.

Step 3

Next, add some thickness closer to the tip of the wing. Use the Width Tool (Shift + W) again in the same way.

Step 4

Lastly, add extra thickness to the bottom portion of the wing.

Step 5

Create the second wing and the tail with the same technique.

Step 6

Make a number of copies of the tail.

Step 7

Select all shapes of the bird and go Object > Expand Appearance. Bring all the shapes together with the help of the Pathfinder panel.

7. Add the Birds to the Clouds Background

Step 1

Create three copies of the bird and fill them in with white.

Step 2

Select the bird illustrations then go Effect > Stylize > Feather. The Feather Radius should be set to 2px.

8. Create the Sun

Select the Flare Tool. Click and drag it to any place in your cloud illustration. Then left click anywhere else in the cloud design. This should produce a bright flare that looks like the sun in the sky.

9. Finishing Touches

Use the Clipping Mask to hide any protruding parts. Draw the square on the top of all objects that are the same size as the artboard. Select all and go Object > Clipping Mask > Make (Control + 7).

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