How to Paint a River With Water Colors
Watercolor paints are perfect for painting things such as rivers and lakes because the color comes out as delicate or bold as you wish, therefore making it easy to create the body of water itself as well as the extra details such as ripples or waves. By learning to control the intensity of the color using the water on your brush, you can create all sorts of water effects for your piece of art.
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Things You'll Need
- Watercolor paper
- Watercolor paints in blue, green, and purple
- Rounded soft watercolor paintbrushes
- Small watercolor paintbrush
- Water
Instructions
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Set up a piece of watercolor paper in front of you and dip a large rounded paintbrush into some clean water. Glide the wet paintbrush across the paper in the area that you'd like the river to be.
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Dab the wet brush into some blue watercolor while the water on the paper is still wet. Create small lines that go with the "flow" of the river over the wet area. The blue will bleed into the already wet paper to create a soft, watery look. This technique is called "wet on wet."
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Allow the river base to dry about halfway. Dip a smaller paintbrush into a little bit of water, just enough to gather some color from the blue watercolor paint. Swish the tip of the paintbrush over the river to create ripple effects in the water.
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Add bits of other colors to add depth to the river, such as purple or green. If you need to soften part of the drawing at any time, simply brush some extra water over the area to blend. Likewise, the opposite is true: using just a tiny bit of water to gather some paint on your brush will allow you to make darker, sharper strokes.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit watercolor palettes and brush image by egal from Fotolia.com
