How to Paint the Essence of Water

Brushwork

1). Use soft round brushes and large flat brushes to create soft edges when painting water and its reflections.
2). Create a reflection using the edge of a flat brush. Press down on the brush to widen the stroke to suggest underlying ripples in the water. Lift up on the brush to finish the stroke and blend the reflection into the surrounding color.
3). Make edges asymmetrical when painting reflections. This can be done by varying angles and shapes to create the appearance of water rising and falling.
4). Use straight lines and hard edges when painting objects along the shoreline or floating in the water. Soften these objects in their reflections by blending edges into the surrounding paint or using wet paper with watercolors and letting colors bleed into each other.

1). Analyze each section of water in your composition for its essential character. While still water creates a near-perfect reflection, that can make a painting look too busy and distract from the water's essence. Break up a perfect image by fracturing the reflections in some areas.
2). Break objects into simple shapes and eliminate details when painting their reflection in the water. Darken the color value of objects in their reflected images.
3). Stroke your brush in the same direction that the water flows in. Make sure to blend edges into the surrounding colors.
4). Use a wide range of hues. Blend blue, purple, green, brown, red and yellow to suggest trees, sky and rock reflections, water depth and movement.

1). Capture the direction of wind-tossed waves or falling water by painting the water's flow, height and shape. You can indicate depth with darker color values at the base and lighter color values at the top.
2). Merge from blue to aquamarine into green as the wave rises. Using color in this way suggests light piercing through the top of the wave.
3). Dot bubbles of foam on breaking waves in irregular shapes. To do this, use white tones mixed with umber containing a green tint.
4). Finish with a thin line of white. The effect is like icing on top of the spray shapes.
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Paint waves in a range of values from dark blues to light foam.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images