The River Spey at Ballindalloch. Watercolour and Gouache, 10” x 14”

Painting water requires understanding of the way in which the assorted qualities of sky, light and movement each contribute to the character of a particular body of water at a given moment in time. Tim Havers explains what to look for and illustrates his points with some of his own paintings in this article from The Artist, June 1979.

Rivers in the landscape

Rivers can present very interesting and attractive compositions, because the bright water often makes a landscape with a much more interesting tonal design than one simply composed of fields.

Bridges, and of course mills, are attractive subjects to paint, and the reflections in the water, and the water itself, are challenging aspects to try and capture. Running water is a fascinating but difficult subject to paint. It is fascinating because it is so various, and a stretch of water can look so different in various lights and winds. It is difficult because not only do you have to capture these changing moods but also to try to convey the movement of the water. I spend a great deal of time engaged in this, painting salmon and trout waters, mainly on commission, and venture to think that my attitudes may be a help to those who try this difficult subject matter.

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Capturing the effects of light and wind on water

Pencil Sketch, 8¼ x 11¾”

Let us consider these two points: the effect of light and wind, and the problem of describing the movement.

Firstly, it would be advisable to consider some general implications. The main characteristic which tells us that we are looking at water is its reflecting capability, and it is important to bear in mind that water will always reflect the tone and colour of the surroundings no matter how troubled the surface, unless you are looking down through the water to the river bed.

We all know that when water is still, it reflects a mirror image of the objects because of the loss of light in the reflecting surface. In practice this is not usually true, except for reflection of the sky, as I shall explain. When the surface is disturbed by wavelets or ripples, however small, it reflects light from the sky as well as from the objects and so the reflection is usually lighter than the object. This is true with even the most minute disturbance, which may not be at all apparent.

The disturbance from the wind generally makes the surface lighter than the unruffled water; however, if the undisturbed water has the sky or a light object (such as a white house) reflected in it, the wind may make a darker pattern in it because the ripples catch reflections from darker objects as well as the sky. If you look at the sketch above (which is of an entirely imaginary scene) you will see this where I have marked it (1).

Moving water always has surface disturbance, no matter how smoothly it may be flowing, and you will notice that this is similar to that caused by the wind (see 2 in the sketch).

The Tay at Stanley. Oil, 36” x 24”

How much lighter (or darker) the tone of this area is, will of course depend on the amount of the disturbance.

You will see how, in the painting, The Tay at Stanley, above, the water on the right, above the dam is very dark. It is flowing quite fast, but its surface is relatively undisturbed and reflects the dark woods beyond. However, the water on the left of the painting, after it has flowed over the dam, is very much lighter in tone, because it is in great turmoil and even has some white water in it. There the water reflects the sky as well as the woods on the opposite bank.

For painting the still, deep, dark water under the trees, I find it best to keep the paint thin when using oils, so that the canvas can shine through and give it a sensation of depth. This usually needs several applications of paint, allowing the previous layer to dry each time, and I use a glazing medium for the final application. The medium is a mixture of stand oil and damar varnish in equal measures, with two measures of turpentine, but I think “Win-Gel” is equally good. Reflections can be suggested by very gently brushing colour over the top of this final coat, when it is nearly dry.

With watercolours, use transparent colours for these passages. Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine or Burnt Sienna and Winsor (or Monestial) Green are both good mixtures. I find that flat (i.e. square-ended) brushes are useful for making the down strokes to suggest reflections, and of course since the water is not still, it is important not to over-state these reflections, but simply to suggest them.

Perhaps the most difficult water to paint is when it is flowing very strongly and swiftly, so that its surface is disturbed by eddies and swirls and no individual objects are reflected in it. It is difficult because it has lost the chief characteristic of water, that of reflecting the objects beneath which it flows. Rivers in flood will look like this, and I have painted the River Oykell in Sutherland in such a condition that it was a flat slate-grey and on canvas looked like a tarmac road. Usually, however, you will find some reflections in the less turbid water near the banks, although it may only be a slight change of colour and tone rather than reflections of individual objects.

The painting of The Fyndynate Pool, River Tay, see below, was done in somewhat similar conditions, but you will see that the fisherman is reflected in the slightly calmer water at his feet, and this and the broken water in the centre of the river help to give a “watery” look.

Water which is troubled by eddies and swirls will reflect a longer image than the object. In still water, in theory, they are of the same length (see 3 in the above sketch).

Colours and reflections

The River Spey at Ballindalloch. Watercolour and Gouache, 10” x 14”

There is another factor which determines the tone and colour of reflections, and that is the nature and depth of the river bed. Generally speaking the river bed will only be visible when you are looking down into the water at a fairly steep angle, so that it is not usually visible at some distance. At a medium range, it will only be visible when the reflection of an object darker than the river bed falls on the water (see 4 in the sketch above).

You will see how the reflections under the bank on the right of the painting River Spey at Ballindalloch are brownish, and this is because here you can see through the water to the river bed, because of the darker reflection of the trees. Incidentally, often such reflections are very dark because you are seeing the reflection from the underside of the trees which can’t be seen directly.

All that I have said so far applies to rivers in which the water running is reasonably clear. When the water is dirty, all reflections take up the colour of the water, and generally dark reflections become lighter and light ones darker in tone.

The Tweed in Spate is the colour of British Rail tea, a brown torrent with hardly any reflections in it. Where the current slackens enough, the sky is reflected as a pale brown, and the trees in the middle-tone muddy green.

When painting the reflection of the sky in clear water there is always the temptation to make it too blue. Never forget that the river only reflects the light from the sky above, and a blue sky will have blue water under it, and a grey sky a river of grey: a sky of white cumulus clouds will have a river very high in tone.

Generally I always paint the water considerably darker in tone and greyer in colour than the sky, because that is how it appears, although the exception is some Highland rivers which take on an intense blue, in places, in bright sunlight. This is due, I suspect, to the effect of ultra-violet light.

Characteristics of rivers

Let us now consider the second characteristic or river water, that is, its movement.

The life and sparkle of clear shallow water running over stones is a challenge worthy of anybody’s brush, and it is this quality of movement which it is important to capture if the painting is to look ‘alive’. The problem is really capable of two quite different methods of treatment. Either you try to paint every ripple and eddy, so that you give the sort of image a camera would record and trust that the viewer will ‘read into it’ the movement which only such eddies and swirls can produce, or else you try, by flickering brushwork and broken touches of paint, to suggest the movement.

In both cases, of course, the treatment of the water should have something in common with the rest of the painting: if you go for the rather more ‘photographic’ approach, then the rest of the painting should be treated in a similar fashion. If you favour the other, ‘impressionist’ treatment, then the whole work must be painted in a similar fashion, so that it holds together.

It may help the effect with the impressionist style, if the brushwork in the moving water has touches of cool and warm colours (probably to different greys) in it, to achieve a vibrancy which will help to suggest movement. The water in the painting The Fyndynate Pool, River Tay has been treated in this fashion.

There is always a temptation to try and suggest the water by a series of horizontal ripples, but river water doesn’t really look like this, and I think it is a poor convention which is not really based on observation, so I recommend that you be abstemious in your ripples; the result will be much more convincing!

Capturing the scale of the river

The Fyndynate Pool, River Tay. Oil, 16” x 20”

A final problem, which is often a knotty one, is that of making the water recede, so that it appears to lie in the horizontal plane and to go into the distance. One way to help achieve this effect is to make the dark ripples darker towards the bottom of the canvas, and the light ripples lighter; you will see this in the painting of The Fyndynate Pool, River Tay.

I think that it is very often a good idea to include a figure in a river scene, it helps to give a sense of scale. I sometimes find that it is a little unsettling to look at a painting in which there is no clue by which to interpret the scale size of the scene, and although this doesn’t always apply, I think it is particularly true of rivers – we need to know if it is the size of the Thames or the size of a brook.

It is often quite astonishing how few clues there are which can be included in a painting to tell us in which direction the river is flowing. I think that generally this is a piece of information which the viewer needs for his own peace of mind, and you must often search for clues to give him. Look for such things as the ripples on the upstream side of buttresses or bridges, or piles of branches in the water, and the swirls and eddies on the downstream side.

I hope that these thoughts of mine will be some help to those who like painting rivers, but I am quite certain that an ounce of observation is worth several pounds of theory. There is no substitute for working from nature and trying to cope with all the difficulties of changing light and changing weather.

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This article is taken from the June 1979 issue of The Artist


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