help - tips on creating a swirl of clouds
 

I want to creat a swirl of clouds for a background in my scene. This swirling cloud will start with normal cloud size and then begin to swirl and get smaller as it swirls back into the space. The kind of swirl shapes you would see in Van Gogh's Starring Night scene. I was wondering what would be a better method or how I should I begin to make it.

Here are some of my thoughts.

1) Should use polygons and use deformers to create the cloud shapes swrling back?
2) woudl it be better with nurbs?
3) should I use Paint Effects clouds?
4) or simply draw it and use it as a image plane or etc.

I was thinking of using paint effects, but I'm afraid I don't really have much experience to know how to tweak the cloud settings in Paint Effects to make it swirl. If you guys do suggest this, if you can give me some quick learnings tips about the paint effects of clouds, this would be great!

5) Or if there is a way, would it be easier to create swirling curves and have paint-effect-clouds painted on it? If so, would this method be complicated?

Thanks