Remember when we were kids, and used to make paper fans by folding a piece of paper back and forth? Ripples in water are a lot like this. You can take a piece of foil, fold it back and forth, and look for how it affects the reflection of an object.
When you have a ripple, one side of it reflects the object; the other side reflects the sky to your eyes. That is what makes it appear to be a "broken" reflection. Ripples can make a reflection appear to be much longer than what it is reflecting.
So try this: Paint a pole in the water. Close to the object, the reflection just wiggles a little. As the ripples get closer to you, the reflection gets broken up. So paint pieces of the pole as the water gets closer to you (or the bottom of the paper). The closer to the viewer, the farther apart and larger the pieces will appear. (perspective)
BEGINNING TO PAINT RIPPLED REFLECTIONS
After painting your beginning wash, you can begin to paint ripples. Pay attention to the direction your ripples are going. They follow the rules of perspective:
* Even if they look like they are at an angle close to the viewer (bottom of page) they will gradually become more horizontal as they reach the horizon line, and may disappear all together in the distance.
*They will become narrower, closer together, and less distinct in the distance.
You might want to draw some light guidle lines to help you with perspective.
Dampen the area of the water where you want to make ripples. You can do this a little at a time, so you don't have to wet the entire area. Make a light stroke in the direction you want to go, touching down lightly, adding a little pressure as the ripple thickens, then letting up lightly as the ripple gets smaller again. Practice on a scrap piece of paper. Do not let the edges get hard edges. Wipe your brush dry and soften edges that look like they want to get hard. You want the wave to look distinct, but not hard edged. Look carefully at your reference.Sometimes the ripples are long, sometimes short and choppy.
I started this in the last blog. I miskit off the white ripples in the reflection, then used contac paper to cover the boat while I made a wash for the water. (see last blog) I really liked the foggy effect.
In the above picture, I used ultramarine turquoise with some French ultramarine to paint the main color of the boat. I used burnt umber wet-into-wet in the bottom to create the dark area at the bottom. Forthe reflection, I just added some ultramarine turquoise (or whatever color used in the boat) to the water color, making it lighter as I got to the bottom of the page. there is a bit of burnt umber where the reflection touches the dark bottom of the boat. I also darkened the left side of the boat and the left part of the reflection.
I started to put in pale washes of boat color inside the boat area.
I started to create some ripples. I concentrated on the ripples around the boat, not trying to do them all. I used the water color in a slightly darker concentration, adding a few waves of burnt sienna to
warm the water a little bit.Notice the waves get smaller and closer together in the distance. Be careful NOT TO MAKE THE RIPPLES TOO UNIFORM or too patterned. They will look contrived.
For the inside of the boat, I finished with a first wash of blue-green except for the railings and
metal rim. I put in cobalt shadows on the dark areas, adding a little burnt umber in the floor area.
The rails are French ultramarine with alizarin crimson. It's important to leave whites on the metal rim and rails of the boat to give it some sparkle.
The metal rim is cobalt blue with a little burnt umber to gray it down. The rope is also French with some burnt umber with white hilights. There are some tiny burnt umber spots to indiate where there would be screws.
In this painting, the color of the boat is dark at the bottom of the boat, and looks like a duller version of the boat color in the body of the boat. The ripples cause the sides of the boat to appear wavy. They really break up and become distorted toward the bottom of the reflection.
If you have painted and still want some more ripple to appear, you can lift some in horizontal strokes to break up waves or reflections.
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