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Steps written out by Crafting Step by Step from Art of John Magne Lisondra (JMLisondra)'s video (opens YouTube) (30:47). Published .
Water is easier than it looks because it is mostly copying. Whatever sits above the waterline gets repeated below it, a bit darker and a bit softer. Get that one idea and the rest is tidying up.
John Magne Lisondra paints a still lake with a pine treeline and its reflection, and keeps the palette to a handful of colours. It is a beginner piece, but the method scales to any water you want to paint.
Three things. The reflection is darker than the object it mirrors. Its edges are softer. And horizontal breaks run across it where the surface moves. Miss the horizontal breaks and you get a mirror image that looks like the canvas was folded in half.
On still water the reflection sits almost directly under the object with only faint disturbance. As the surface moves, the reflection stretches downward and breaks into separate horizontal bands. More movement means more break-up and less detail.
The whole painting rests on smooth gradients in the sky and water. If yours are banding, work through how to blend acrylic paint first.
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Paint realistic water in acrylics. Copy whatever is above the waterline below it, darker and softer, then break it with horizontal lines so it reads as water. An easy project: about 1 hour 30 minutes. Materials cost about $10 to $18. You need 7 things, including canvas, water jar and flat brushes. The 9 steps start with learn the One Rule, block In the Sky and Water, set the Horizon and Blend, paint the Distant Treeline and build the Pine Trees.
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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.
Reflections mirror vertically, not horizontally. The object nearest the waterline reflects nearest the waterline.
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.
The further away something is, the closer its colour gets to the sky. Resist the urge to add detail out here.
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.
Work the reflection while the water underneath is still slightly wet. The two colours merge and give you the softness for free.
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.
Put the ripples nearest the viewer. Disturbance in the foreground and stillness in the distance is what makes the surface recede.
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How to Blend Acrylic Paint
8 steps · about 18 minutes
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How to Paint Water and Reflections
Liquitex
Liquitex BASICS Acrylic Paint Set (24 tubes)
Artist-grade pigment at student pricing, buttery enough to blend and thick enough to hold a stroke. The set most acrylic painters start on.
Benicci
Benicci 16-Piece Artist Brush Set
Every shape you actually reach for (round, flat, filbert, liner, fan) in nylon that keeps its point and does not shed. Comes with a palette knife and case.
FIXSMITH
FIXSMITH 8" x 10" Stretched Canvas (12-pack)
Pre-primed cotton canvases in a bulk pack so you can just start painting. The low-stakes surface for practicing before the big piece.
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Question 1 of 5
What is the core idea behind painting water?
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5 questions, answers, and one-line explanations. Tap to expand.
1.What is the core idea behind painting water?
Answer: Whatever sits above the waterline gets copied below it
A reflection is mostly a copy of whatever sits above the waterline.
2.How should a reflection compare to the object it mirrors?
Answer: Darker and softer than the object
A reflection reads as water when it is both darker and softer than the object.
3.What keeps a reflection from looking like a folded copy?
Answer: Horizontal breaks running across the surface
Horizontal breaks are where the moving surface interrupts the reflection.
4.How does a reflection change as the water gets choppier?
Answer: It stretches down and breaks into separate bands
More movement means more break-up and less detail in the reflection.
5.Your skies and water band instead of grading. What to practise?
Answer: Blending acrylic paint
The whole painting rests on smooth gradients, so blending is the underlying skill.
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