The surface of the water soothes, enchants, bewitches. Whether it is storm, calm, ripples or waves - the artist's hand will be able to capture this picture in paintings, reflecting the naturalness and uniqueness of water. To make the water "wet" and "alive" in the picture, use special pictorial techniques.
It is necessary
- - canvas;
- - paints (watercolor / gouache / oil);
- - a cloth;
- - palette;
- - brushes.
Instructions
Step 1
Water can be painted with horizontal and vertical, wide and small strokes. They are done both with a brush and with a palette knife, a swab and even a rag. Horizontal strokes, as a rule, are long, gently flow into each other, they are good for depicting calm water. Wide horizontal strokes are used by artists to depict water in the background. Long vertical strokes add life to the water, they can focus on the waves of the water, on its ripples, or you can show the smoothness of the surface in the middle and foreground.
Step 2
When portraying a calm water surface, do not forget that it is like a mirror. That is, in it you will have to draw a reflection of everything that is on the shore and on the very surface of the water, always upside down. When choosing the color and tone of the mirror image in water, be guided by the transparency, depth, turbidity, and color of the water itself. These nuances will give more light or shade, warm or cool hues to reflected coastal objects.
Step 3
Check carefully with nature and do it as often as possible (if you are not writing water from memory). So you can notice that on a clear sunny day, not only objects are reflected on the surface, but also shadows. And the reflection from both the dark and light parts of objects will be somewhat "warmer" than the shadow on the water, which is depicted as "cold", almost blue-violet. Glare, foam and duckweed are possible on the water, notice and transfer these details to the canvas. Reed thickets are found in ponds and lakes.
Step 4
In the reflection in the water, the artist can paint what is not visible in the upper part of the picture, but is assumed to be outside the edge of the image. These are the crowns of trees, the lower part of the clouds, clouds, birds, etc.
Step 5
When depicting water at night, consider the nuances of color reproduction. As a rule, on a bright moonlit night in the water, you can observe a clear, solid reflection of objects. Too small details are darkened, sinking into the night, not visible and, accordingly, not drawn.
Step 6
If a light breeze touches the surface of the water, you may notice ripples, or small waves. Use other techniques to depict this state. In the undulating ripples, or rather in its inclined planes, the sky is reflected. This nuance can be conveyed with small dark strokes, two tones deeper than the bulk of the water. If the sky is clear, the wind creates ripples in dark blue. For ripples, it is better to use a small bristle brush, touching it to the canvas with small horizontal strokes.
Step 7
If the wind is strong, the ripples become gloomy, gray, thick. It "breaks" the specularity of the water, but gives it the same "wet" natural state. Such water can be written with a swab or even a cloth. First, with a wide bristle brush, draw sweeping vertical strokes from the water's edge downward, matching the tone of the shoreline, but correcting for the blueness of the water, its transparency, etc. Draw over fresh strokes with a rag or swab, smoothing the borders, move from top to bottom. The image will be more natural and will match the image of water in nature.
