How to Paint Water - Make It Look Real.

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In this lesson on how to paint water, I want to talk about how you can make your water look more real.

We will deal with these topics:

• values and colors in reflections
• shapes in reflections
• plus more tips

Values and colors in reflections:

When studying how to paint water more realistically, there are a few main areas you need to study.

The first is value. When a color is reflected, it is changed. It may be very subtle, but in order to convince anyone who looks at the painting that we have painted water, we must give the effect of water.

Here is a quick illustration:

Dark colors tend to get lighter, and light colors tend to get darker in reflections. I exaggerated the color a bit in this example so it is easier to see.

Of course, to make it easier for you to learn how to paint water, I want to show you some actual examples.

This painting by Frederic Church shows how a subtle change in value can make water seem like "water." Look at the colors in the lower sky just below the clouds. Now, look at the water. See how the water is ever so slightly darker and more dull? Colors get a bit more dull as you will also see in this next example. Also, look at the gray-blue reflections in the water under the mountain. You will find that water can reflect multiple parts of the sky.

Here is the next example.

In this painting, the artist shows a slight change in value in the reflections of the figures. Look at the person in the red. Notice how his reflection is a little darker and more dull. You also don't have to include as much detail in water as there is on the figure. The waves will remove some details as you will see in the next section.

Shapes in water:

When I talk about how to paint water, I am talking about what you can see. Water is transparent, but it also reflects what it sees.

Shapes in water are changed by how strong the waves are. Calm water shows detailed and clean reflections. Rough, wavy water shows broken and distorted reflections.

Here are three types of reflections.

1. Calm water shows clean detail that is not distorted.
2. Some light waves will cause the object to distort though it retains the same "base" shape.
3. Many rough waves will cause the object to break in parts. This is because water can't reflect something to "us" if it is facing away from us, as in the back side of a wave.

A wave changes the direction of the reflection. It becomes then like a mountain. One side will reflect one color, and the other side will reflect whatever colors it can see. We may not be able to see the "back" of a wave if it is high enough. It would be like looking over a small hill.

Also, if you look at rivers at night, you might see a streetlight being reflected in the water as a long stream of light. This is because multiple waves are reflecting the same thing. It is like taking a mirror and breaking it into multiple pieces. Each wave reflects the light, therefore making it appear longer since the waves are close together and line up.

I'll go over some more on this in the next section. I also have some more examples for you from my own work.

More tips for realistic water:

Okay, so by now you should have learned a trick or two that can show you how to paint water. Now, I want to give you some more examples and talk about some different things that can help even more.

This is a painting that I did of a local river. In the foreground, you can see a strong wave created by a boat that just went past. Look at the bottom right corner. See how the wave reflects warm peachy colors and cool blue colors at the same time? This is because like I said water can reflect more than one color if the waves are large enough.

You can also see some areas a little higher up where the building's reflections are broken up. It is subtle, but subtle touches make the difference.

Notice also how I made the water get a little darker towards the bottom. I always like to do this. It adds depth to the painting. As the water goes back it shows atmospheric perspective.

Here is another example.

Okay, now here you can see some new things. On the far right, look at how the tree is causing a shadow on the water. You can get shadows even on water. see how it darkens the blue?

You can also see some subtle reflections of the trees. If I had put in a strong reflection, it would have been too much. This water simple cannot reflect that much. Different depths and so forth can determine how much can be reflected.

Also, look at how strong the colors are in the water. I did this to make it more dynamic. You can get away with this sometimes even though before I said that reflections make colors more dull. Well, in this case, you can't see the blue sky, so I was able to make a nice strong blue reflection. The sky might even be more blue than the reflection, but no one will know so we can make it look how we want.

A word of caution though, bright colors tend to draw the eye in. Don't put super vivid colors near the edges of the painting. You want the viewer's attention near the subject or focal points, not near the edges.

Here is another example.

.

In this example, I was a little more expressive. I put in strong blues and emphasized the warm colors in the foamy areas near the waterfalls. When learning how to paint water, don't try to get too expressive too fast. Try to work up to that.

You'll also see some expressive brushstrokes that make the water seem to come alive. I always like to play with brushstrokes in rushing water. Try to make the strokes varied and exciting. Even though I'm trying to show you how to paint water more realistically, I still want your paintings to be expressive and exciting.

You can also see some examples of reflections in the middle ground of things I talked about earlier with colors in reflections getting more dull. Also, look at how the colors get more dull toward the back. I do this for composition to add depth. It always works.

So, I hope you learned some useful tricks in this article on how to paint water more realistically.

The actual painting process is easy. Just put down the colors and shapes that you see. If you get them right, it will look like water. I usually use a filbert or flat brush myself. You can watch some of my videos to see my process.

Read articles related to: How to Paint Water: Make It look Real.

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