ArtistsNetwork.com 37In this picture you can quickly see that there’s no wind, and the water is
still, creating mirror reflections of the images and objects on dry land. Few
artists like to paint completely still water for this reason because doing so is
like painting the same scene twice.
A light wind blowing across lazily moving water, as shown in this photo, will
result in broken reflections. Many artists favor depicting water in these
conditions. The slightly disturbed reflections bring life and interest to a
painting. Notice how the forms of the reflections aren’t broken until about
two-thirds of the way down. That broken effect is very pleasing when
handled subtly.The water is quite disturbed in this valley stream. You can hardly see the
reflections because of the wind.
In this photo you see water so disturbed by a hard wind that there are no
refl ections at all. It’s an unlikely candidate for a painting since the
monotony of the body of water might come across as visually boring. The
same information is repeated with little variance. To make the scene more
alluring, you might paint glistening sunlight that hits a portion of the water’s
surface, or add objects that create visual interest, such as boats.Blowing wind will affect the current in any body of
water, which will, in turn, affect how you should paint its
reflections. Unless water is running over a downslope,
reflections will differ with changes in the wind.
Still water is most often present when there’s no
wind on small ponds and lakes. The reflections in these
bodies are simple mirrors of the objects on dry land.
Lazily moving water, on the other hand, has broken
reflections, which make for an interesting subject. Wind
might cause ripples, most common in rivers and streams,
which distort the reflections so that they become barely
distinguishable. Highly disturbed water, such as lakes and
oceans on windy days, may completely distort reflections
past the point of recognition.OBSERVING WATER AND WIND