64 Watercolor artist | AUGUST 2019
Watercolor Essentials
Executing
Effects
Consider the following
brushstrokes or techniques to
create various water effects.- Drybrush drag: creates
sunlit sparkle, as in Brookside
(on page 63) and Turtle Bay
(below) - Wet-into-wet charge:
results in reflections on the
water’s surface - Wet-on-dry stroke: creates
fine ripples and details - Lift: creates horizontal and
vertical lines of reflected light
when using a thirsty brush - Mask:makeshard-edged
wavesandsharpreflections,
asinTuftedPuffinsII(onpage
- Wet-into-wetspatterusing
paintorclearwater:creates
aconvincingtexture
Turn to page 66
for a demo
ABOVE
Tan and olive
shades in Shore
Bird (watercolor on
paper, 15x21) reveal
the sandy bottom
of this shallow
shoreline. An
overcast sky results
in no blue refl ections
on the water.LEFT
Wet-into-wet soft
refl ections give the
water surface in
Turtle Bay
(watercolor on
paper, 14½ x10½ ) a
glassy appearance,
while the drybrush
drag in the fore-
ground indicates
sparkle. Note that
the refl ection doesn’t
need to be exactly
accurate to be
convincing.Finally, the refl ection of the shore
has an infl uence on the apparent color
of the water, as in Tufted Puffi ns II (on
page 62).REFLECTIONS
AND SHADOWS
A refl ection can be soft or hard
depending on the water’s surface,
the quality of light and the distance
from the viewer. It always points
toward the viewer. When it’s crossed
or broken with horizontal ripples, our
brains tell us that we’re seeing water.
Refl ections should usually be a
shade lighter or darker than the
objects being refl ected, and distorting
the shapes adds to the illusion of wet-
ness and waves. Note that a refl ection
isn’t a “fl ip” of an object; it’s actually a
diff erent view. We’re able to see a bit of
the underside that’s not visible when
looking at the object straight on.
Shadows, meanwhile, are cast away
from the light source. When com-
bined with refl ections, the scene can
become quite complicated.