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How to paint water reflections

Wet into wet, blending, dry brush, mark making & splatters

Water Reflections Painted Example 2 LR.jpg
Aim of the session


To explore some techniques to paint water and its reflections.  I've included a few photos at the end of the page, of the lake at Bentley Priory Nature Reserve in Stanmore.  Notice when the water is completely still, the reflection is a mirror image.  When water is more choppy (current, wind, ducks),  you see horizontal lines running across.  

Water has no colour, it reflects the colours around it - sky, clouds, trees.  The more you look the more you see.  However, for today, we are going to keep it simple.

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I encourage you to take a trip to Bentley Priory Nature Reserve.  It's an inspiring place for an artist and I have it on good authority that there will be waterlilies in bloom this summer.  I've even made a heritage walking map to inspire you.


https://www.kerryslackart.com/single-post/harrow-heritage-walks-maps

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https://www.kerryslackart.com/single-post/harrow-heritage-walk-map-illustration


Materials
 

  • Watercolour paper, 300gsm cold pressed 

  • Tube watercolours

  • Brushes (large flat or round wash, medium round + small detail brush)

  • White gouache (optional)

  • Tissue / kitchen roll

  • Water pot

  • Pencil

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Handy Hints

​Do a few of these and treat them as reflection experiments.  The clouds and trees in the distance are there to give us some reflections. However, they  are not the point of the exercise, so don't spend too long here if you haven't got the time - we won't have in class.

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Colours:

 

Cobalt or cerulean blue

Cad red or viridian

Yellow

Indigo

White 

Water Reflections Painted Example 1 LR.jpg

  1. Pencil in horizon line and border if required
     

  2. Paint SKY - Wet the entire paper.  Using a large brush drop in a light value of blue to negatively paint the clouds.   Try and mirror top and bottom.    You can use a tissue to give some of the clouds a hard edge

    DRY 
     

  3. Wet the sky area, only to the height of your treeline. Drop in some green mixes at the horizon line and let the colour bleed up.  Encourage the paint to move in  the approximate shapes of trees.  Vary your tree colours and values- DRY
     

  4. LAKE - Add a wash of blue/green to the whole area of tree shadow - DRY
     

  5. LAKE - Wet the area under individual trees and drop in that tree colour and let it float down.  Add some darker, more concentrated paint closer to the tree.  You are aiming to achieve a soft blend from dark to light.  If necessary, use a tissue to lighten the edges
     

  6. While still wet, with a smaller dry brush, lift out horizontal lines in this area
     

  7. Once all the tree shadows are in - add some horizontal lines to reflect the ripples on the water
     

  8. Less is more here.  Dry brush the foreground in a green/blue,  try and keep some of your sky and clouds peaking through.   Wash out areas of dry brush,  gently and selectively with water
     

  9. White water line & splatters

Water Reflections Painted Example 3 LR.jpg
Bentley Priory Nature Reserve 3 Kerry Slack.jpg
Bentley Priory Nature Reserve 1 Kerry Slack.jpg
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