This is only half of the exercise for this painting. I started adding objects into the water just to test how to paint the reflections. (I should also note, this is painted on the reverse of Study-Water: 1. I like to use both sides of the paper when I’m experimenting/learning in order to save paper.)
Again I tried to use Umberto Rossini’s technique for painting the sky. (I don’t know that it’s Umberto’s technique, I guess I should say – the technique I learned from watching his video.) And, I tried to use the technique Ron Hazell teaches to paint the ripples in the water. I still don’t like how the ripples came out, and I HATE how the reflection of the boat came out, but that’s why I am doing these. This is a lesson.
I ended up purchasing Ron’s book on painting water, it should arrive Friday and I’m excited to try out some of his exercises.
There is one thing that Ron discusses regarding the angle of incidence and painting water that makes sense to me, and also raises some questions. He mentions that the angle of reflection causes some incidental light to be cast into the water, where it does not reflect back to the eye, and other light bounces off the surface of the water and into the eye. This causes the rippled effect that we recognize so instantly when looking at images of water.
I want to look more into this to better understand the physics involved. What percentage of the light goes into the water? What angle does that light enter the water? I know light refracts as it enters water, but I don’t know by how much. Does light hitting water near the eye refract at the same angle as light entering water far away from the eye? When you look into water, you are seeing some of the light that was absorbed by the water now reflecting off of objects and into your eye, what happens to those reflections as they exit the water? Is there a similar rippling effect happening on the underside of the water? I assume there is, but is that effect in any way recognizable to a viewer outside the water? Am I crazy because I’m wondering this stuff?
Anyway, after painting this, I added a whole bunch of other objects in order to mess around with trying to paint reflections. As soon as I get a photo of that version, I’ll update this post. For now, here’s the third study, before I added multiple docks, and random objects.
Next, I’m going to start working my way through Ron’s book.