The right way of painting water

by Tissa Hewavitarane

The secret of painting water is to "edit out" all the superfluous details and go for the bigger masses of tone and colour. You've probably heard the saying, "Less is more" and nowhere does this apply more readily than in the painting of water.

Achieving the smooth glassy look of water requires surprisingly little effort, often a few sweeping strokes with a broad brush and damp paper are enough to convey the effect you need to show water.

Water like clouds is usually in motion so you must observe the way it looks at one instant and catch that on paper. One nice thing about water is that it has a rhythm in its movement and will generally repeat the sequence so you can catch that feeling again and again.

Still water is like a horizontal mirror. Stream water moves, tumbles and flows. Study its movements carefully and then paint a generalisation of its movement. The brushstrokes should follow the action of the water.

Motion

Do not put down every rock and ripple since rushing water looks best when understated. The lack of detail immediately brands it as a rapidly moving stream. The only way you might catch its "one movement" is to photograph it and that might be a good way to work.

Open sea water and crashing surf are in constant motion, but it is a recurring movement. Sea water has no colour of its own (it is clear) but reflects the colour of the sky overhead.

The rougher the water the darker the colour, but seas are usually darker than the sky above.

Generally the sea is darker up close and lighter as it reades, un less the sky conditions cause a variation. Remember that the ocean is flat, so you should keep your brushstrokes horizontal and not at various angles.

Waves appear greenish. The white spray splash, caps and surf can be masked out at first to preserve the whiteness or it can simply be left unpainted.

Surface

Whether you apply your colours to dry or damp paper is a matter of preference, but choose your colours with care and apply them with confidence. The more decisively and simply you paint water the wetter it looks.

Therefore, try to work with large brushes that discourage the habit of fiddling and prodding.

Use plenty of water to facilitate smooth even strokes. Mix your colours carefully and test them on scrap paper before applying and remember that they should appear quite dark in tone to allow for the fact that they will fade a lot on drying.

On large stretches of water the surface is made very light where it is farther away and dark in the foreground.

This is because the horizon reflects the low lighter part of the sky, but close to the shore the water picks up the darker colour from the sky like a mirror but rough water picks up and relays the light form many directions, either darker or lighter than the sky depending on the prevailing conditions.

Water in a stream tumbles in some parts and flows in others. Before painting a stream watch its movements very carefully for a long time and then paint a generalisation of the movement.

Brushstrokes should follow the action of the water. Do not put down every ripple because rushing water looks much better when it is understated and the absence of detail gives an impression of rapid movement.

River

When the water is muddy it reflects the colour of the sky, be it blue or stormy grey. Secondly, it reflects the things that surround it, trees, earth and bridges, all of course upside down.

One thing that has dawned on me over the years is just how little you need to do when you are painting a river.

To make it look authentic, whole areas can be just left as a flat wash. But there are a couple of tricks which I always find most effective when I depict rivers. One is that where the river goes round the bend I leave a little patch of light which seems to give a little air of mystery.

Another process which is quite good in putting depth into a fairly flat river is to turn the picture upside down, wet the whole river area with clean water and immediately put a strong dark across what is now the top, graduating it down to nothing as it comes to the end of the river.

Once it is dry, turn the picture upright and you get an exciting illusion of depth. Observe the painting I have done here. Reflections of a post in completely still water and in disturbed water.

A post sloping away will produce a shortened reflection while one sloping forward will produce an elongated one.

Note how the large ripples are shown with brushstrokes and the action of the water. It was the last decision as to whether to put a figure or not.

Whatever you do in different ways it gives life, movement and scale to a painting and the tree on the right gives more depth.