Sketching The Sky

Often times when we are sketching the sky we want allusion of a smooth, subtle, flat sky that is glossy rather than seeing hard lines made by sketching. To create this smooth, glossy, flat sky you need to blend. Blending is key to creating this allusion. Charlie Bowater suggest not using a pencil unless you are really careful because pencil lines do not blend properly (78). I did try to use a normal lead pencil, as you can see from my swatch above, but it didn't blend properly. Where as when I used a graphite pencil, which is my bottom swatch,  it blended much easier.

Along with using the right tool, you should make swatches to get a feel for how you would want your sky. When you do your swatches, keep using the blending stick and add more scribbles as you need. With drawing clouds to use the same technique. You darken the areas around the clouds to define the tops of your clouds. Then you can also sketch the outline of your clouds as you can see from the image below my attempt at it. With practice you can get a better result, but this was my first attempt at it.

Bowater advises "using a smaller blending stick to continue witting away at the cloud shapes"(78). But I don't think that is that important, because there are other techniques to add more detail then having to use a smaller blending stick. But you can if you would like. I prefer making a darker outline and doing it; but you can do it either way. With these tips you can make a start to make a scene. because just clouds don't make much. Make sure when you do this you are using a kneaded eraser to help highlight and bring out edges. Using these tips and a little creativity you can have a very successful sky.
How do you draw your skies? What techniques work for you and do these techniques help to improve your sketches? 
Bowater, Charlie. Beginner's Guide to Sketching: Characters, Creatures & Concepts. 3DTotal Publishing, 2015.