Watercolour mediums, waves, the sea and art.
Is there a realm beyond the one we are living in, another dimension? Is there somewhere else we can go, when this world is tiresome, or bothersome? How can we get there, would a medium help us find the way? Art is a great medium to help us escape the realities of the real world. The act of creating a painting can transport us.
The painting itself, when finished and hanging on the wall, can sometimes also transport us to that other realm. If we let it. For me, the most absorbing paintings are paintings of the sea, I always come back to the meditative art of making waves.
Waves are by their nature eternal and infinite. Where, and when does a wave start? A stone cast in the sea will create a ripple and that ripple will travel outwards, and weaken, but never die. It will blend with other ripples and forever be a part of the eternal motion of the ocean. An underwater earthquake may cause a tidal wave, and that too will live forever, and today some of the waves crashing on the beach have been born decades, even millennia ago.
When the wave crashes on the beach, does it die? No. I have watched them for hours. The energy of the wave spills out as spray and foam, rides up the sand, and returns, under the next wave to reach land. It returns to the sea, drawn outwards by the tide, gaining new strength all the time. Where will it go next?
I am painting a series of waves at the moment. I would like to share the process with you.
When painting in watercolour, you need to plan the painting in advance. There is a lot of white to be seen in the ocean, spray and foam. In watercolour the whitest white is the white of the paper itself. We need to use this. So I start with the spray and foam, painting this with masking fluid/drawing gum.
I use a brush for the crests of the waves and the larger blobs of foam the are found just at the foot of the waves. It is important to first prepare the brush (an old one) by covering it in soap. I have a small dish with a small round bar of soap, which I spray, with water and I rub the brush around in this. If you don’t do this the masking fluid will solidify on the brush hairs, ruining them. Once the wire crests and blobs of foam are painted with the masking fluid, we have a wide on white painting, which is ready for colour.
I explained before (March 2024) how I paint the lacy foam on the beach, Now I will deal with the waves themselves. I need to say that, before I apply any any water to the paper or paint, I add a little drop of gum arabic to it. This is a clear liquid supplied in a bottle. FYI watercolour paint is manufactured using this gum to bind the pigments, so what we are doing here is adding a bit more. This has the effect, it appears to me, to unbind the pigment again (a bit) and the colours flow and blend in a much more natural way. I really only use it when painting water, it really does add immensely to the process and the enjoyment. It’s great fun.
And so – to the water. The water closest to the shore reflects the sky more so than the ocean itself. On a dull day it will be grey, but we all like sunny days, when the reflected sky will be cerulean blue. So, I lay a wash of this blue, over the lumpier foam a little further out from the lacy foam, blending it a bit with the darker umber colour of the wet sand, where the two meet.
Normally when painting I start at the top of the sheet (the sky) and work down. With these waves I start at the bottom and work up! As I work up the paper sheet, I have to create the waves themselves, with all their might and power. I need to consider the shape of the waves, but remember, I have already drawn their outline, crests, spray and foam with the masking fluid/gum. Apart from those elements, the crashing waves have a shape like a tube. This is seen best in those internet photos of surfers, speeding along inside this tube. The waves further out have a different shape, a bit like moving mountain ridges.
Now, no two waves are the same! They are liquid and moving. The are fleeting, gone in a moment. They change constantly as they roll in. It is difficult to capture all of this on a two dimensional piece of paper. We can really only create the impression of a wave (and the one beside it and behind it). We must do this with paint.
We have two tools to work with – colour and shadow. Firstly, what colour is a wave? A glass of water is clear, it has no colour. The colour of the sea comes from that which is above it – the sky, and that which is below it. At the shore, there is sand below the sea (and probably rocks, seaweed, and so on). The sand can be a variety of colours, but yellow (tan or light brown) sand will appear green when the blue of the sky is brought into the picture. Dark rocks will produce a turquoise colour. And then there’s the blue of the sky.
In these paintings I am working on at the moment I am using Cerulean blue as the base blue, I start with a wash of this colour. I am using cobalt blue to provide texture, ultramarine for darks, and Prussian blue for very dark darks. Four blues.
As for shadow, waves have shadows. We have to use colour to create these. The wave crests further out to sea, will have a darker blue below them (cobalt blue) closer in these may have a deeper shade of blue. These are straight forward enough. The spray on the crashing waves can have a very dark shadow, the body of the wave can be somewhat (or totally) translucent, and there is a dark shadow again at the base of the wave (though this will be partially hidden because of the lumps of foam on the water).
The crashing waves are quite complex, indeed these are make and break. Mess them up and the whole thing goes in the bin. By starting with light washes and with the help of the loosening features of the gum arabic, I proceed gently with these at first, becoming bolder as the waves takes shape.
I have many photos of waves. They are a useful reminder. I can’t say that I use them as a reference directly, but they can help to put you in the mood, to bring you back to the beach. For the most part, I draw the waves freehand and paint in the blues, as described, by feel. That is to say, I make brush strokes according to what I feel will bring the wave to life.
To develop a feel for waves, you have to immerse yourself in them. Literally, if you wish. I like nothing better than to sit on a rock at the beach and watch the waves roll in. Watch how they crash on the sand, how they creep up to your feet, how they scurry back to the ocean from whence they came. Better still, is to sit on a boat gliding across the water, itself moving with the motion of the waves, at one with the sea. You are part of it. I draw on this feeling, which is by now well settled in my bones, when I am painting waves. The feeling of the sea comes over me and I am calm and excited, all at the one time.
When I finish splashing about in the water in this way, I have the painting to a point where the bulk of the work is done, and I can start the process of finishing it off. I leave it to dry completely. Then there comes the task of removing the masking fluid/gum. This has now been totally painted over, though much of it will be still visible. It will also be feel-able, by running your fingers over the paper you can feel it. It has to be taken off. When removes, it will reveal the pristine white of the paper, it will stand out against the paint, and create the whitewater of the beach.
It can be easy or not to take off. A lot depends on the brand and quality of the paper. I am experimenting with different papers as I create this series of wave paintings, the jury is still out. Your index finger works best. Just rub the stuff off with your finger. I play the banjo, so the tips of my fingers are quite tough. Even so, sometimes they can get a bit sore, so I use an eraser to rub it off. Usually a mixture of both. You will know that you have it all off, because by running your fingers across the paper you will feel any gum that is still there.
We now have a completed painting, except that the white is too white. The finishing stages will deal with that and make the whitewater more natural. Again, feel is the key.
With the gum removed the spray and foam is brilliant white with no texture. So again, we need to bring in the shadows and reflections. The foam is shaped much like bubbles in the bath. Sort of round and lumpy. Being light and lumpy, the shadows in the foam are also light. Typically cerulean blue. I might use some light cobalt blue for a slightly deeper shade.
To indicate bright sun, a tiny bit of lemon yellow on the top of the wave crest, will pay off. While you have the lemon to hand, you might consider if a little shade of green might help make the waves more natural looking. As I said the sand beneath the waves will change the hue, and also bright sun shining through the translucent body of the wave will change the light blue to a light green. A carefully laid wash of lemon yellow will achieve this for you. If the day is not so bright you might need some deeper greens, but feel is all important, and adding greens will change the tone of the painting totally.
Finally We might return to the body of the waves, and the sea beyond the near waves, and add a few careful brush strokes to create a bit more motion in the waves.
I now prop up the painting, where I can see it, and from time I will sit and look at it, sometimes squinting, seeking out the final slight modification That will bring conclusion to the process.
By then I will have already started another one.
