How to Draw Water: Ripples, Reflections, and Splashes
If you want to know how to draw water, I can show you what I do. These are the basic rules:
Dark water reflections will reflect lighter, and lighter reflections will appear darker. Water will appear darker than the sky. Reflections reveal the undersides of an object and not it's reverse. And finally, water reflections always lose detail.
This is semi extracted from my longer article originally published at https://www.wildlifeartstore.com/on September 6, 2020
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Armed with a few simple ‘rules’, let’s see how they work in practice.
How to Draw Water Reflections
Reflections in still water are the easiest to draw. The ‘rules’ apply clearly without all the complications of moving shapes.
A dark bank of trees reflecting in a still lake will appear lighter in the reflection. The value of the reflection will change depending on the color of the water, but the rule remains constant.
The reverse is true when light objects reflect. They appear darker in the reflection. A white boat, for example, will reflect as grey.
Let’s assume we are adding some trees to a landscape, set back from the water’s edge. There is some land in-between the trees and the water. If we were to flip the trees over from the base, only a portion of the reflection would cross the waterline.
Now let’s look at a simple landscape and work out where the reflections would be. This is a quick sketch I made to demonstrate the rules, such as they are.
STEP 1: I sketched a clump of trees in a landscape and drew an imaginary waterline. An amateur would flip the whole scene and draw the reflection, like a mirror, but this is not quite what I do.
STEP 2: The first thing I had to do was indicate a riverbank. I drew a slim reflection along the waterline. I diffused the detail.
STEP 3: I flipped the tree reflection vertically, blurred the detail, and lightened the tone slightly. The reflection must start from the base of the tree.
STEP 4: I do the same thing with the clump of trees to the right. I flipped them over, from the base, and because they are further away, the refection crosses the waterline higher up. You can only see the foliage.
STEP 5: I repeat the process on the left. The crown of the bare tree is visible in the water, but the far tree is only just showing. You’ll note that the horizon line doesn’t appear as a reflection at all.
STEP 6: To add some authenticity I added a grey gradient to the water. Light skies reflect darker in water and make the scene look life-like.
Given that I’ve created this landscape out of my imagination, it looks authentic. Few would challenge the perspective. If you want to dive deeper into drawing trees in the background read about it here.
How to Draw Water Splashes and Droplets
One look at this picture with water splashing everywhere and the idea of drawing it can be overwhelming. It is, however, one of the easier effects to master. It’s all technique.
Again it’s easier to use an example to demonstrate my point. Let’s take a look at this great white shark. Where would you even start, right?
It might look rediculously complicated, but that doesn’t mean I copied everything super accurately. I didn’t
I was more interested in getting the effect to look good. Near enough was good enough.
Discover how to use photo references They’re essential for doing drawings like this.
My priority was to draw the shark as well as I could before I attempted to draw the water.
When I was happy enough with the way it was going I started to block in the sea using an HB, 0.3mm Pentel mechanical pencil.
I explain how to use mechanical pencils, check it out.
A mid-grey base tone was all I needed.
I darkened the obvious black patches with a B grade and then it was a matter of ‘lifting out’ the tones using a combination of erasers.
- I used a Tombo-Mono eraser pen for the smaller ripples,
- A kneadable eraser for larger areas using it to dab the paper lightly,
- Blu-Tak to press against the graphite and lift clean patches of graphite without smudging
- A battery eraser pen to lift the sparkling highlights
I went back and forth, erasing, shading, and erasing until I was confident that everything looked authentic and balanced.
I’m glad I managed to keep the black water looking clean and smooth. I resisted the temptation to add more tones.
The contrast between the plain simplicity of the darks against the complexity of the surf makes the image much stronger.
Amateurs often assume that experts know exactly what they’re doing at all times, but that’s not the case.
There is a lot of trial and error and calculated guesswork. Don’t be too concerned if things go wrong. Step back and take a break. You can usually pinpoint your errors when you return with fresh eyes.
The icing on the cake happens when you use the battery eraser to draw the dots and squiggles at the end and the water starts to move.
By breaking down the drawing into stages, starting with the darker tones and progressively ‘lifting out’ lighter areas, a seemingly impossible task is made achievable.
I used a similar drawing technique with this next picture.
Drawing the water droplets, in this drawing of a jaguar, was very satisfying. To do the same, take a battery eraser and make random dots. Don’t make them all perfectly round, draw wonky shapes, and add tails to some of the drips.
Shade the droplets by making one side dark and the opposite light. I left a thin white rim surrounding the edge.
Now highlight the dark side, with a dot of white, using the eraser pen. You now have a very realistic water splash. Don’t forget to draw all the highlights coming from the same direction.
If it goes wrong. Draw over it and do it again. SIMPLE
If you need help with drawing basics try this drawing course I discovered on Proko.com. Dorien draws better than me. Click on the image.
How to Draw Water Ripples
In stark contrast to the previous drawings of water which look so challenging, but were relatively easy, the next example of a duckpond was insanely difficult to draw.
It’s always the same, whenever I get over-confident, I’m brought back to earth with a bump. I assumed that drawing water ripples would be easy, it was anything but.
The duck itself was reasonably straightforward. I used hard pencils to draw in the subtle greys of the plumage and ‘lifted out’ the highlights. This is my usual method.
The water reflection of the duck was fairly easy as well. The issue I had was making the shapes align realistically. They were, in fact, more distorted in real life and didn’t look quite right. I shifted them slightly.
Drawing the water ripples was a total pain. I went wrong primarily by choosing textured paper instead of a smooth surface.
I wasn’t going to give up and start again because I’d spent too much time drawing the duck already. My task was to draw a smooth water surface without the grain showing. As you can see that was only partly successful.
Heaven knows why I drew such a small grid. This is a very simple shape to block in. I used mainly very hard pencils for drawing the feathers. Learn more about choosing pencils here.
You can see that the light feathers are reflecting darker in the water. I established the darks beneath the duck. I started to draw in the elliptical shapes and began to struggle. I tried to blend the tones with different grades of pencils.
I struggled because I was fighting the paper and refused to smudge the graphite.
For years I resisted blending pencil thinking that it was a pointless technique used only by amateurs, I was wrong. All I did was make work for myself.
The water ripples in the foreground are sharper than those in the background. I had to lose detail in the distance. You’ll also notice that there is a slight gradient, beginning with a darker tone at the front which gets progressively lighter as it recedes.
We all get these ideas about the right and wrong way to apply your medium and they can be hard to shake off. I should’ve used a cotton bud to gently smooth the surface, instead, I used various grades of pencil and tried to blend them ‘skillfully’.
To add to my difficulties, I had to draw precise elliptical water ripples, each with its own gradients. I had no idea that drawing ellipses would be that difficult. If I was only a fraction out of line, the water illusion was lost.
I had to draw concentric ellipses, perfectly aligned, perfectly spaced, and with perfect gradients and tone. It drove me nuts, and I was constantly picking at anomalies and stray specks appearing in the paper grain.
This drawing represents one of the classic problems artists experience when they are continually ‘rescuing’ their artwork.
After investing so much time and effort, with some notable successes along the way, everything becomes far too precious. Fear sets in and you become afraid of losing all your gains.
The fear itself inhibits you from making the right changes and you get stuck.
N.B. I drew this Call Duck on tinted paper originally. If you ever want to print your pencilwork, take my advice and draw on white paper. Its easier to get a great scan and make good prints.
I’ve learned not to get complacent and how to choose paper carefully
The fun starts when you want to draw something in clear water. Not only have you got water reflections bouncing around, but you also have the body shape and shadow, all in one chaotic image.
I won’t kid you, it’s daunting, and every time I have pushed myself to the challenge, I’ve sworn I’ll never do it again. The drawing of a dolphin below is a case in point.
The key to drawing crystal clear water is to emphasize contrasts. The sparkles look best against the black background. You can see that more clearly below the dorsal fin. The ripples on the far left look good for the same reason.
It’s vital to retain the white highlights if the transparency is to be convincing. To that end, I made a huge effort not to smudge the surface of the paper in any way.
Nowadays I would ‘lift’ the whites out with a battery eraser, but I drew this many years ago and painstakingly drew around the dots, one by one.
Battery erasers are a godsend. Find out how I use them to draw tiny white lines.
As I couldn’t use color to separate elements in the image I retained the grain in the paper to indicate the sandy seabed while smoothing th dolphin’s skin with a paper stump. The dolphin stood out more in my colored photo, but in monochrome, I had to use more contrast to have the same impact.
I also had to make it clear that the head was above the water. Only the top of its head is in perspective. The rest of the body underwater is distorted beneath the ripples.
It can be a challenge to draw a convincing animal underwater when viewed from above, the refractions may look great in a photo but bizarre in an illustration. Some judicious corrections may be required.
If you want to give your drawings more oomph, check out these 14 hacks to add more interest.
The image below is a drawing of a river otter. I did it many years ago.
The challenge was to make the body visible in a mass of rippling water. I drew each ripple one by one.
As with the dolphin drawing above, there was almost no ‘lifting out’ with an eraser. I drew this before I’d established any real technique. I was still experimenting.
It’s only the dark shapes at the sides that give form to the body, that and the slightly lighter belly. I do remember readjusting the tones over and over again to get the balance right. It was only when I was in danger of ruining the paper that I stopped.
Drawing Water: Final Thoughts
Drawing water doesn’t need to be so painful if you approach it in the right way. Remember the guidelines at the beginning. They will help a lot. Use your eraser to draw water and the most complex effects will be so much easier to achieve.
Now you know how to draw water in pencil — probably.
If you can tackle drawing water, it’s time to sell your art. If you wanna live your dreams and make a living, you need to check out this guide!
There are more tutorials like this, take a look at:
- How to Draw Realistic Shadows in Pencil (All the Secrets)
- Tracing Art — Is It Good or Bad? When Is Tracing Cheating and Is It Ever OK?
- How to Draw Texture in Pencil: 6 Tips to Get Results — FAST
- How to Protect and Preserve Your Drawings and Avoid Disaster
- How to Scale Up a Drawing in 4 Easy Ways and Save Time
This is an extract from my article originally published at https://www.wildlifeartstore.com/on September 6, 2020.
