-Introduction-

Hello everyone! It’s Yoru and I’m back again with another post! This time, I will be discussing the fundamentals of drawing water.

 

This post will focus more on the basics such as lights, reflection, and how water moves and reacts. It will not be a step-by-step in depth tutorial on drawing water, but instead it will discuss more about how to approach drawing water.

 

 

A. Reflection and Light

1) Light

 

Unlike regular objects, water is transparent. For example, if you were to pour water into a glass, you would be able to see through it. Because it's not opaque, it behaves differently than other objects. When you point a light at water, it travels through the water itself, this is why the lighter part of the water is on the opposite of where the light hits the surface.

 

Another useful thing to remember is that water is refractive. It means that when light enters water, it slows down and changes direction slightly. This change of direction is called refraction. For example, if you put a straw inside a glass of water, the straw under the water will look like it changed directions.

It will also reflect and distort the objects surrounding it.

2) Reflection

 

When drawing reflections on water, there are many variables to consider and there is no single correct answer because reflections can change every time. However, there are two things to consider when deciding how the reflection should look: Movement and Angle.

 

We can divide water into two surfaces: the horizontal surface and the vertical surface. The horizontal surface reflects the objects above the water while the vertical surface shows the objects under it. Because of this, the way water is moving and from which angle it is drawn from becomes an important factor to consider.

Movement

 

First of all, let’s consider the movement of the water. Still water is the easiest as it will be a mirror image.

 

Most people would make a copy of the object and flip it horizontally to make a reflection, and while it is not wrong, this only works on an image with a perfect horizontal view.

 

A more realistic drawing will need a more accurate reflection. When you see a reflection in water, the object and their reflections are actually taken from two different viewing points. The reflection is from the view point of below the surface while the object itself is from the view point of above the surface. This means that typically you would see more of the underside of the reflected objects and even some parts that are not visible from the view above water.

When water has movement, the reflection in it will no longer be a mirror image. Rather, it will look distorted following the movements of the water.

 

The more the water moves, the greater the distortion. Same with still water, the reflection will be from a different view point, but my tip for drawing reflections in distorted water is instead of drawing a normal line as the object, distort the line to follow the motion of the flow and blur it. This method makes it look like the reflection is constantly shifting following the movements of the water.

 

Angle

 

The second thing to consider is from which angle is the picture drawn from.

 

When viewing from directly above, you most likely not see any reflection, rather you would instead be able to look through the water to see what is beneath it.

 

But when you view it from an angle, the reflection on the water is the same angle on the other side of the water surface. What is visible in the reflection depends on how steep the angle is.

Because of the different angles, what becomes visible in the reflection changes.

For example:

In picture 1, because it is taken from a lower angle, you can see the reflection of the hat and grass projected on the water.

 

However, because of the steep angle of picture 2, the reflection is not as visible. Instead, the water only reflects the underside of the hat.

 

When drawing from both above and with an angle, then you need to make a gradual change to show what is under the water and the reflection on the surface. What is important to remember when drawing from this view is that water becomes less reflective the closer you are.

Because A isn't near the foreground, the water in that area is more reflective and the pebbles below becomes less clear.

 

In B, because it's closer to the viewer, the water becomes less reflective and it instead shows the objects underneath it.

B. Water Movement

Because water is fluid, it moves and changes accordingly depending on the situation and in response to external forces.

 

For example, let's see how water moves when it is poured into glass.

The water falls straight down, and as it flows, it falls straight down. Due to the falling speed, the tip of the water becomes thinner. As it reaches the bottom of the glass, the water becomes displaced as it tries to fit into the new container. Then, as more water is being poured, there is a minor disruption as the water tunnels down. This action creates bubbles under the surface. When the flow stops, the surface of the water will slowly stop moving and stay still.

Next, let's see what happens when you throw in a ball into that glass of water.

As the ball hits the surface, the water tries to make room for the new object. But because it has nowhere to go, it moves upwards and outwards. Meanwhile, below the surface, as the ball keeps tunneling into the water, there is an air cavity surrounding the object. Immediately after the air cavity forms, it collapses on itself.

Of course, the reaction would differ depending on the weight of the object and how it is thrown, but the logic behind it is still the same. This applies to other situations as well, as water hitting a rock or a waterfall.

 

 

Another thing to remember is how gravity would affect water. As water is flowing down, gravity will always pull on it, this will cause several possible reactions such as: water bending and twisting when poured from a height; droplets forming on the side of the flowing water; and water gradually spreading when sprayed from an angle with a lot of force.

 

Remember! Water will always flow down because of gravity!

C. Different Bodies of Water

Now that we have a better understanding of how water works, we can begin to draw water. Before you draw water, make sure to consider what you’re going to draw first. Are you just drawing splashes and droplets? Or are you drawing large bodies of water such as rivers and oceans? A general understanding of the differences will make it easier to draw.

 

While water is transparent, bodies of water are not. Look at a picture of an ocean and you can see that it is usually blue in color. Why is that? We would need to understand a bit of science for this.

 

What makes water blue is the molecules in it. When light hits water, it absorbs light that is red, yellow, and green and reflects blue light. With a small body of water, there isn’t a large amount of blue light being reflected and scattered which makes it look clear. However, in larger bodies of water, there are more molecules which means there is more light being reflected.

Other than that, there are other things that may affect the color. A lot of rocks and mud in rivers can make them appear brown. Algae can make the water green because of the green pigment in it, some algae can even turn the water red.

 

With shallow water, I would choose a lighter color - slightly turquoise with hints of green. I would use a smaller brush to create the strokes of the ripples. The edges of things such as highlights and reflections are also sharper.

 

Deep water - such as lakes and oceans - moves and ebbs slower with a smoother surface. I personally would make it gently reflect the surroundings and the sky before shifting to a darker blue. Using a larger brush with slower strokes can help with making the surface’s highlights and reflection appear softer, which shows the smoother surface. Deep water, such as oceans, can have foam on them, which are typically in a light - near white color.

 

Tip: Easy Sea Foam

With a calm water surface, I would make a new layer and fill it with white. Then, change into an eraser brush and erase circles into it. Use different sizes and move it around a bit to make a variety of shapes. Finally, clean it up by making the edges thinner. Once you've cleaned it up, copy and paste it and change the copied layer's color and play with the opacity and you're done!

D. Compositing Your Art - Example of Drawing Water

Now that we've learned the basics of how water works, let's apply it to our art.

 

For this, I'll be drawing a simple picture of a girl in the ocean.

 

Let's start with a sketch.

It's important to know the situation you're drawing. How much water is in the scene? How much of the water touches the clothes? What material are the clothes made of?

 

Depending on those, the objects on the will react differently to the water. For example, a thin fabric will turn transparent when coming into contact with water. Another thing to keep note of is the weight of the fabric. Thinner fabric will float easier compared to thick fabric because it is lighter.

 

Because this is a tutorial, let's keep it family friendly. For this, I decided to make the clothes thicker and heavier so that it wouldn't be too transparent when coming into contact with water.

 

I continue with the lineart. For this, I decide to separate the lineart of the girl and the water into two layers instead of one.

Then I added the base colors. Like with the lineart, I separated the layers.

After finishing coloring the girl and the background, I move on to the water part of the drawing.

Because the legs are submerged under the water, I decided to edit that area first to show it being distorted due to the refraction.

First, select the area.

Then, use 'Mesh Transformation' [Edit -> Transform -> Mesh Transformation] to distort it.

Now we start with drawing the water.

 

First, I would start painting my water with different shades of light blue to dark blue to give it more dimension. This way, the water looks like it's constantly moving.

Then, I add the reflections on the surface of the water. I kept it soft because it is near the foreground.

Creating a new layer, I painted the water a darker blue to indicate which part is the surface of the water and which is under the water.

Then, I added a few bit of white and dark blue to reflect the light and the underside of the skirt.

After I was satisfied, I added a new 'Color' layer on top and filled that layer with a turquoise color. This is to change the overall color of the water to be a lighter blue.

 

To make sure the color of the reflection doesn't change, I used a mask and erased the part near the reflection.

Once I did that, I merged the coloring layers together and added effects for the water splashing. For this, I used the default brushes: Rough wash (Realistic watercolor), Droplet (Airbrush) and Running color spray (Airbrush).

Then I color in the lineart of the water.

I sprayed the corners of the picture with a dark blue color to keep the focus on the center of the picture.

 

Because the right side of the drawing looked empty, I decided to add leaves there.

Finally, I did some last minute adjustments and fixing to the picture and I'm done!

- Closing-

Thank you for reading up until now! I hope I was able to explain the topic well and I hope you manage to have a better understanding of drawing water from my post.

 

However, I am still very much a novice artist and I know I have a lot to learn myself, though I'm happy to be able to share some of my knowledge to the community!

 

See you all in my next tutorial and keep on drawing!