Stones in water

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I have painted this picture with only two colors, one blue and the complementary color to blue, it usually means a brown color. You can choose which blue and brown you want, but before you start painting, check that they can be mixed together into a reasonably neutral black. I myself used Phthalo Blue (RS) and Pyrrole Orange, if you own these colors, use them, they work very well together.

Step 1

The first thing you should do is paint all the water, but not the stones, with a light gray color that you mix with the two selected colors. Try to make this gray color surface as smooth as possible, very fluid painting in other words. Let the paint dry completely, it must be completely dry before you start the next step, which is to paint the blue wave pattern that you can see in the photo. I used unmixed phthalo blue diluted just enough with water. The wave pattern is not completely horizontal, it varies over the entire water surface. Look closely at the photo and try to imitate how the waves have different angles over different parts of the water.

Step 2

Now it’s time to start painting rocks, mix a rather light fairly neutral brown color of the two colors. The pattern that you paint on the stones should be quite rough, it should form a basis for the rest of the stones. The whole stones should not be painted, only a few spots here and there. Keep in mind that the light comes from the left in the picture, so all stones should have more color on the right side.

Step 3

Paint with clean water one of the stones and then paint with a dark paint mixture wet in wet in such a way that the shape of the stones becomes clear, darkest at the water’s edge and lightest on top of each stone. Also paint the reflections of the stones in the water. When painting reflections, it is very important that you simultaneously create credible waves, study the photo carefully. There is also some seaweed that floats on the water surface a little here and there, this should also be painted. If you paint the seaweed a little in spots, the illusion of light reflections is created and thus the seaweed looks wet.

Step 4

This is really a continuation of the previous step, more color wet in wet. But even some defects on the stones are painted when they have become dry, cracks and the like. Take advantage of the pattern that was painted in the second step, where it happened to end up a small unpainted surface, put a shadow next to it (on the left side) so it seems to be meant from the beginning. That way you get some structure on the stones. The top of each stone must be lighter than the water behind, which means that it must be completely unpainted.