Paint Water

When I first turned my attention to painting the water in the ocean and its surroundings, I came face to face with the exasperating and ridiculous task of trying to make it stand still long enough for me to study and paint.

I soon learned that the very thing that had brought me to the ocean as a subject was the quality I was trying to take away from it. I came to realize it was not just the ocean that had movement-tides, currents, changing surface –but so did the sky and the sun. Our source of light, the great zenith of the sky, the clouds ever changing, all reveal to the artist reflection and reflected light, with the atmosphere breaking up the light and allowing us to observe and live with the colors on nature’s palette. Even the stately rocks had their days of movement when the Ice Age pushed, shoved, and arranged them in the beautiful patterns and shapes that we see today, the ocean constantly gnawing at their polished surfaces, breaking and chipping, creating new forms to delight the eye.

To the person who wants to paint the ocean, I say: go to the ocean and live with all its moods and movement-become, as much as you can, part of it- give yourself a chance to acquire more understanding and respect for the subject that you have chosen to paint. There are many today who use books, paintings, prints and photographs to work from. I grant that they have some merit. By studying them some useful information may be gained-eve something that is bad may point a good direction. But the great lesson is in experiencing the moods of nature, the moods you wish to paint. To paint only the surface of the subject, and the surface may be only paint-skin deep. The true beauty of art lies beyond this point. It lies within the realm of feeling. In order to feel the ocean, one must go to the ocean.

Winslow Homer’s paintings are great, not because of their surface, but because of the depth of emotional knowledge he gathered from his association with his subject. When viewing one of Homer’s paintings, you do not at first sense his paint quality, but you feel a great emotion that comes only from the elements-the ocean, the sky, the wind, and life itself. It goes without saying that the canvases of Homer show great technical skill. An artist’s search for more understanding of his medium and its application never ends. As your knowledge increases, you will be free more and more to express your thoughts.

As for the technical side of painting, leave no stone unturned to increase your understanding of the artist’s materials and their use. You should have a good sound working knowledge of color, linear perspective, aerial perspective, light and its effects, composition, values and what constitutes a good working palette. In this regard, a number of books on the market today will help. From these technical books, you may find he different materials best suited for your own particular needs.

There may be some of you who read this book who only go down to the ocean on occasion to paint. Your first love in painting may lie in another part of nature. Let me assure you that the study of one phase of nature is the same as any other phase. In an obscure back yard, a seed is planted, watered, miraculously springs to life with movement and growth, produces flowers that possess color and scent, then returns new seeds to the earth to repeat he whole beautiful cycle again and again. This is the same explosive sequence you see as great waves crest and rush over rocks to return to the ocean. It is sometimes a great comfort to know that your fellow artist painting a different subject has the same unending search into nature as you have. It is only his interpretation that differs, along with his manner or style.

It would be best if I did not have to say a word about style. There seems to be a great seeking on the part of some students for a style. This is too bad, for there is little enough time to paint without wasting it on something hat exists from the very beginning, something that will develop naturally as you become more proficient. Your style is as your handwriting, a part of you. What you are is what your style will be.

To the beginner, one of the most frustrating studies to cope with is the movement of the ocean and foam breaking in and around the rocks. At times what is happening can be seen very clearly and is very obvious. Other times, it seems like utter confusion and chaos. So many factors come into play that some form of organization must be evolved to help study this seemingly erratic behavior.

If you are making your studies of wave movements at high tide and some of the action is unexplainable, be sure to return to the same spot at halftide, then again at low tide. Some of the action may be due to the formation of the ledges and the rocks beneath the surface. ocean can ricochet from one unseen surface of a ledge of rocks to another, creating turbulence that seems unexplainable. Another great factor is the tide and its movements. At high and low tide, there is a period of calm where there is no movement at all. The ocean may roll in a classic form allowing a clear insight into its formations. The action of the ebbing tide, running in one direction, is totally different to its counterpart approximately six hours later running in the opposite direction. When the strong tide begins its movement, it sets the great undertows in motion, pulling the ocean sideways, kicking large sections of foam skyward, first one way then the other. If the artist is conscious of what is going on, then all of this becomes organized and is readable.

If the ocean are caused by a fast-moving line storm in which the winds reach a high velocity in a very short span of time, the waves are choppy and high with very short spans or valleys between them, sometimes breaking as far as the horizon in short, choppy little mountains. These treacherous storms are hard to study for the breaking of the waves lasts for but a moment, not allowing any sustained study period. Storms which last for only a short time may end with the wind shifting in the opposite direction, knocking the choppy ocean down as fast as they made up. To the fisherman and his mall craft, these squalls are unpredictable and extremely dangerous.

Large storms that occur with winds reaching gale force for a period of three or four days are storms of huge ocean with long troughs between them. These ocean allow the observer to study them as they slowly build, crest and hold for a moment, then peel off, rushing their mountains of foam in and over the land. Then, as this water turns and rushes seaward again, creating an enormous undertow, it sometimes kicks the next wave right out from under itself. Only a large headland seems to influence these movements; the smaller rocks are just inundated. But as the torrents of water recede, smaller surfaces play a great part in creating patterns-the heavy foam pours off and around them, creating beautiful shapes of light against dark rocks. As the incoming ocean crest, large amounts of foam are caught up by the fierce wind, and driven ahead of the wave action, soaking everything in its path. The opposite is true as the storm breaks and the wind shifts. The spume is then driven back over the waves, creating a beautiful misty veil which is sent skyward and back-a waterfall in reverse.

There is a wave action that you may witness on occasion which is a delight to behold. The great ocean seem to come from nowhere. These are the great ocean swells that are created by some unseen storm. They literally develop from nothing, slowly becoming moving mountains in slow motion. These swells are known to have traveled for hundreds of miles. They create the classic wave type in action and, when breaking, allow for long periods of observation and study. They may arrive at your shoreline on the most beautiful of days. This is the only type of huge wave action that one can study in complete comfort. In some sections of the world, this is a common occurrence. These are places that have strong tradewinds that keep the ocean in constant movement in one direction.

I would like you to consider for a moment the actual movement of waves. At first glance, you would think that the water is actually in a forward movement. If this were true, then in a storm of great magnitude, all of the water would be on one side of the ocean. Rather, the movement of the ocean is up and down, not forward. To demonstrate this action, take a long clothesline and tie the far end down. Now, with a flip of the wrist at the free end, give the line a quick up-and-down motion. Watch the action move down the line to the far end, like waves. Because the far end is tied down, it can have no forward movement, but the line undulates in a pulsating rhythm, the same basic principle as the waves.

Another thought. To me, the life that accompanies marine painting is a life of freedom, not particularly physical freedom but freedom of thought. It is almost impossible, as you walk the beach or sit high above the surf on a rugged cliff, to do anything but organized thinking. You may have random or even subconscious thoughts, but this thinking always lends itself to a betterment of your understanding, no matter how small. You can free yourself from man-made laws at these moments spent by the ocean, realizing that it is the natural laws of nature that govern our very existence.

If you look to natural law as your teacher, you will more readily understand the cresting of the great ocean which have been spawned in the bowels of some unseen storm hundreds of miles across the curve of the horizon, as they make their way to the rocks below, ending their long voyage in a burst of spume for your contemplation. If, on this day, you but sense the vastness of your subject, your effort will not be in vain and your painting cannot help but improve. These are the blocks on which you build your painting, not on the fact that purple is the recognized color scheme this year, or thick paint on the canvas is more popular than thin. If you succumb to the latter, you are destined to change your thinking and painting each year as the trends drift from fad to fad.

To start the lesson follow the steps below:

Read Introduction on Landscape Oil Paintings

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 1

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 2

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 3

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 4

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 5

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 6

Step 3

Dip the tip of your palette knife in black or a dark color, while allowing some of the paint to c08t the upper edges of the knife as well. Beginning from just about the center of your horizontal schemer draw 4- or S-inch verticals both above and below the median. The verticals on the top half 0 the canvas will be our trees. The lines below the horizontal will serve as the reflections of these trees in the water. If you want to add large branches do so with identical but smaller movements of the palette knife at pronounced horizontal angles, on the upper portion of the canvas.

You do not, of course, want to be drawing straight lines. Even pine trees have subtle contours for which such rigid lines would be inappropriate. How then should you draw these trees? Imagine the skinniest US” in the world. Duplicate that shape with your hand. Do it a few times without he knife just to get the feel of it. Then take your knife and draw the trees with just that motion.

A common worry among beginners is whether the reflections will accurately mirror the shapes of the trees. Again, hink of how it works in nature. The ripples of the water invariably fuzz the reflections. Or the sunlight dances cross the surface, bending and reshaping the trees in every possible configuration. What you see in the water is, at best, I ambiguous. The fact is, you thus have enormous freedom when painting the reflections. Just follow your common sense, but don’t worry if you .can’t render a precise mirror l image. If you have drawn large branches and now want their reflections as well, merely squiggle them in on the flower part of the canvas. Once again, rigorous precision is simply not necessary.

The next question is, how many trees should you draw? Basically, it doesn’t matter. We have already made the point that the landscape is an exciting genre simply because there are so many different routes you can follow. If your canvas is 18 inches across by 14 inches deep, a typical route would be three or four trees spaced at logical intervals. On the other hand, there are many effective paintings in which just one lone tree leans eerily off to the left or right.

There is, of course, the aesthetic issue of balance. This is almost complicated subject and we certainly don’t have the space here to explore it thoroughly. Suffice it to say that paintings should be balanced like anything else; an additional weight on the top or left should be compensated for by an analogous mass on the bottom or right. Sometime however, intentional imbalance can be very effective. A single tree all the way on the left may gain in power simply because it introduces a striking asymmetry into the proceedings.

The problem of balance can be approached in many ways, and it will be helpful to mention just one for your future experimentation. Through many centuries of trial and error, artists arrived at the conclusion that some colors Neigh more than others. The so-called “warm” colors, like red and orange, weigh more than the “cool” ones, like blue. (To remember which are which, just associate blue with an Eskimo’s lips and red with the color of a Sahara sun.) Now if you are only drawing one tree and sticking it off to the left, you can still make the composition symmetrical by adding a streak of red or dark yellow on the right. The weight of those extra-warm colors will serve to balance the tree at the opposite end.

At the ground level, streaks of red will emphasize the solidity of the land. Paint them in now. The more you learn about painting, the more you realize how complex are the problems of light. For example, after you have drawn the reflections of the trees, try drawing their shadows. A novice might guess that the problem here would be to accurately capture the actual shape of a shadow. Not at all! What you really need for a shadow is a small dark line at the base of a tree drawn in with a quick jab of the knife. Anything more would be intrusive, whereas that brief squiggle jutting out I from the trunk will tell the viewer all he needs to know.

The real problem is where to put the shadow. Its position must be determined by the direction of the light. Here light becomes a taskmaster. When we drew the reflections of the trees, we saw that the light on the water would render them phantasmagoric (optically indistinct) and thus give us more freedom in depicting them. In contrast, light dictates that a shadow must be here and not there, this way and not that way. In painting shadows we must obey its dictates. So what I suggest is that until you master the subtleties of light, it’s lest to assume that the sun is pouring in from the upper left comer of the canvas. That way, you will always be safe drawing the shadows in a left-to-right direction. I would recommend about a 25° angle from the base of the trunk downwards.

Next, touch up the tree trunks with a lighter color to once again create depth. Here, use the knife to trace just the edges of the trunks. Even a pure white will be effective for this. What emerges won’t be simple depth but an actual vibration, as if the dark comers of the bark are shimmering in the sun. Our trees will seem to jump alive as a result. Next time you go to a museum notice how many of the great landscapes on view feature lakes and haystacks and trees that seem wispy, almost evanescent. The masters knew best of all what light does to solid substances, how it makes even the heaviest forms shimmer in the breeze. There is absolutely no reason why you can’t achieve the same effect by imply applying subtle tinges of white to the edges of your trees.

As part of our third step, we can draw the roots of the trees directly below the trunks. Oddly enough, it really doesn’t matter what color you choose. In fact the darker the tree the more I’d recommend a lighter tone. Again our real purpose is to create form through contrast and depth. Never mind that most roots are actually heavy and brown. Unless you’re planning to draw the enormous vinelike roots of a fig tree, it’s really more important to avail yourself of yet another opportunity to intensify the overall effect of your canvas. Indeed, there are times when a white tone, much like the one with which we touched up the edges of the trees, will be most effective.

Being true to nature with your colors is not therefore all that important. Obviously you don’t want a pink sky and orange lagoon. But the real soul of art is form, and the same light that creates form also plays recklessly with color. Those roots, which we would normally expect to be brown, are subject to a thousand unpredictabilities of the sun. Any color might be reflecting upwards from the base of the trunk.

Everything you do should be with a thought towards form: light and color, composition and balance. Sculptors create form automatically by the simple nature of their materials. But in painting, there is no wood or marble looming towards the viewer, nothing extending from the surface, as in sculpture. You must rely totally on your own devices. When, for example, you draw the roots with your palette knife, be as squiggly as possible. The same narrow US” with which you drew the trees might work.

Remember that form has been the helpless plaything of nature for eons. It has been gnarled, torn and broken by the ravages of time, just like a checking account that is overdrawn. So pretend that your wrist is a ballet dancer. Let it shimmy gracefully at every step and thereby capture nature’s form in all its uneven grandeur.

Before moving on to the next step, we want to add some character to the ground and the trees. Put a glob of paint at the tip of your palette knife. A dark color might well be advisable here. Turn and twist the knife in the paint until it looks like a string bean hanging down. Then apply it to the tops of the trees. Whether you have painted branches or just a single trunk, these additions will give much greater body to the trees. You’ll really notice this in the next step, when we use toilet paper to create our leaves.

Oil Painting Materials Needed:

1. A photo to reference for your painting.
2. Canvas panel.
3. Canvas mount or easel.
4. Oil paints, using colors from your photo.
5. Mineral spirits.
6. Brushes

To start the process, lets work on a canvas panel mounted on a board. Then take your photo reference for the oil painting and have it next to your canvas.

First dip your brush into mineral spirits so you can start out with thin paint.  Mix your colors to start with your background. Start with a lighter color first.  As you paint your background use the thin light paint to also block out the shapes of your painting. You can squint at your photo reference to isolate the shapes in the photo. Keep the paint thin and light during this process. The goal of this first step is to create all the shapes of the painting.

As you continue use your dark colors but paint your canvas with a focus on contrast. Then carefully blend your shadows with your highlights. Make sure you are aware of how your paints blend on canvas. Continue to fill in your bigger shapes first. Do not focus on detail at this point.

Once you paint your big shapes and your contrast of shadows to highlights then start to bring out your color. First identify the colors in your photo reference and then mix your colors for the canvas. Use color tones to create space and define the separation of objects to background. Put more attention and time on the focal points of the art work.

To finish your painting it is best to take a break. I recommend that you get some food and take a walk. You need to come back with some more energy and fresh eyes. Remember contents is in a glimpse. Now take a finer brush and start to paint in the details like small objects that will bring the painting to life. Continue be aware of your light source and paint highlights on all objects to create a 3rd dimension.

That is it! You can now clean your brushes with the mineral spirits and hopefully you have a beautiful masterpiece to show your friends.