Surf At Morning

"Surf At Morning"

12" x 16" Oil on Canvas covered MDF Panel

I am again painting coastal rocks in the surf with this painting. I like the flattend foam patterns in the water as well as trying to improve my work on rocks. These rocks had those striated pattenrs in them which gave them that yellow/orange line of color adding interest to the normally dark rocks. I also liked the shadows across the foam on the rocks too. In the actual painting it is easy to see that the color of those shadows is a light violet and against the stark white of the foam in the sunlight it makes for a great contrast.
The brown sandy bottom and churned up sand in the shallow foreground area gave tge water that murky look...almost resembles muddy water...it's a big contrast from the silvery sheen on the top of the water right below the incoming wave. 
One thing I love about painting water, any water, is that at first you are only laying in base colors and it looks horrible. Then you begin to add reflected colors and shadow on top of that and it really is amazing to see it turn into water. The answer to painting good water is reflected color....but it is only going to work well when you paint a good base color. What is the base color? It is usually the color of what is under the water....the bottom, since water is clear, colorless. The deeper the water gets then you begin to lose the light which makes your base color become dark blue, light blue, green etc. You can learn a lot on how to paint water just by looking at a photograph of it. When it's moving it is harder to read but a still photograph makes it easy to dissasemble the parts of the water in your artistic mind. You'll see the base color and then the reflected colors on top of that. Sky, clouds, the far shoreline, docks, boats, rocks, these are your reflected colors. The less the water is disturbed by wave action the more reflected color you will have. 

....a detail of the foreground rocks and water