How to Paint Water and Reflections

Whatever sits above the waterline gets repeated below it. That is the whole technique. A reflection is a mirror image of the scene, so if there is a tree on the bank, the same tree shape goes directly beneath it in the water.

Paint the sky across the top and the water across the bottom in the same blue, but mix the water a shade or two darker. Water almost always reads darker than the sky it reflects, and setting that difference now saves correcting it later.

Decide where your horizon line sits and blend the sky down into it so there is no hard edge. Every reflection in the painting is measured from this line, so it is worth getting level before anything else goes on.

Mix blue with a touch of red and plenty of white for a pale misty purple, then scrub in the far treeline. Keeping it light and low-contrast is what pushes it into the distance and gives the scene depth.

Switch to a small flat brush and work the trees along the bank. Tap in short downward strokes either side of a central trunk line, keeping the tops narrow and letting them widen toward the base.

Repeat the same tree shapes below the waterline in a darker, softer blue-green. Pull the strokes downward from the bank and let the edges stay blurry. A reflection with crisp edges stops reading as water.

Load a liner brush with white and draw fine horizontal lines across the reflection, especially near the waterline. These breaks are what turn a mirror image into a water surface, and they do more for realism than any amount of detail.

Bring in the bank with browns and a few lighter rocks, then copy its reflection straight down in a darker version of the same colours. The bank gives the eye something to measure the water against.

Scatter a few small light-blue waves across the foreground water and stand back. The reflection should sit darker than what it mirrors, blur toward its edges, and break horizontally where the surface moves. If all three read, the water is done.