How To Paint Water in Oils – Part 1
February 23, 2010
A View of Grand Canal Venice - Antoine Bouvard (1870-1955) French
There is a lot of conflicting information about Antoine Bouvard out there. Seems his birth, if not his life and work are mixed up with his father’s. Probably the most reliable biographical information I found is that Antoine Bouvard (1870-1955) was the son of Antoine J. Bouvard (1840-1920). The senior Bouvard trained at Beaux-Arts in Paris under Constant DeFeux. He was Architectural Director for the Sienne as well as a flourishing artist.
His father’s pupil, Bouvard accompanied him on trips to Itlay where they both painted the exquisite vistas of the Venetian backwater. Their paintings are remarkably similar.
This is a great place to start a discussion of depicting water in oil paint. The Bouvard illustrates the inherent mirror like quality of water, especially calm water. Obviously the reflective quality of water has a lot to do with the colors and values we will use when painting a given body of water. Calm water reflects objects clearly and distinctly while water in motion, especially extreme motion (stormy waves on the ocean) reflects them less so. The sky over head as well as trees, buildings and boats, etc. influence the colors and values we see in water. But reflections are not the only influence on the colors we see when observing water.
(Please note that I said, “….colors and values we SEE when OBSERVING water. I am not talking about formulas here but learning to understand and judge what we SEE. There is no substitute for the experience of working from nature itself.)
There are two other major factors which have influence on the colors and values which we see in water. There is the color of the water itself. We often think of water as transparent and colorless because that’s the way it looks when it comes out our kitchen faucet. That’s not usually the case in nature. In most river, lakes, streams, bays and oceans the water has some amount of turbidity. Turbidity refers to particulate matter floating in the water column. For instant a lot rivers have silt in them. The Mississippi River is called The Big Muddy. It looks muddy brown because of the silt floating in it’s water column. Here in west central Florida the Gulf of Mexico often seems a milky green gray or greenish tan. That’s because the local sand bottom is fine grained and a relatively light tan, almost white in color. When wind and waves have the water in motion their is a fair amount of this particulate floating in the water column. In places like the Florida Keys where the water seems clear and blue that’s because there is less turbidity. On Florida’s east coast the ocean waters often seem turquoise blue. That’s because of the close proximity of the Gulf Stream. Those blue waters contain very little particulate and allow light to penetrate rather than diffusing it as in turbid waters. What we see here in Florida may differ from where your local circumstances. Observation is the key to understanding.
The other major influence on the colors and values we see in water is underneath the water. The bottom. For instance, one of my favorite places to paint, the mangrove shores of Fort Desoto State Park in Pinellas County, Florida is an estuarine environment consisting of shallow (fisherman call it skinny) water. Beneath this water lies a dark reddish muck built up of years of decaying plant and other organic matter. This dark red muck influences the water’s color, especially in the shallowest parts. Bottom color is especially evident when looking down at the water. In terms of paint that means the influence of bottom colors are most often present in foreground waters.
Back to the Bouvards. Having observed several of their works in person I think they solved the problems of painting relatively still water this way: They washed in a midtone, usually a greenish blue gray,thinly, grading it from darker to lighter, foreground to background. I think they allowed this to dry and then painted their reflections and ripples on top of it using wavy vertical strokes of color, some lighter and some darker than the midtone wash. The effects were dramatic.
I will take up here next time as this promises to be a thread covering several posts. Now get out there and paint something!
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5 Responses to “How To Paint Water in Oils – Part 1”
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Thanks for this. It comes at a good time. I am working on a beach scene of Lake Erie and needed to be reminded of the sand in the surf near the beach. I also love the Art History that you give.
I’ll second the art history comment. I really enjoy and appreciate the time you spend inserting historical photographs of paintings in your “talks”. They add a lot. And, your thoughts about how they painted the water or any other aspect of the image are also very interesting.
As always, an excellent essay on a topic that gives most of us fits. Your recommendation to OBSERVE is oh so true!
VERY interesting (as always)….especially about letting the basic water dry rather than utilizing the wet paint to “bend” the water and reflections.
[...] Last time I started explaining some of the things I’ve learned about painting water. I mentioned three major factors which contribute to the colors we see in water, especially shallow water. Let’s pick up where we left off. [...]