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. Read the rest of this entry »
Painting reflections is a lot easier than you think. It is basically a distorted version of the environment of the reflector. If you are painting the three dimensional world then you must first determine the perspective of the reflector. You must first determine if the reflected surface is a smooth surface or a rough surface. The more rough the surface the more distorted the reflection. In the case of the painting to the right the reflection is slightly distorted. This means it is representing a calm surface of water on the beach. The painting to the left is also a water reflection but the water reflection is more rough, so the reflection is more distorted. It is that simple when it comes to water. 