How to Paint Reflections of Trees
Paint perfect reflections of trees in water.
You must completely finish the water including the reflections and ripples before painting in the dead trees.
Note how we paint reflections before we paint the trees.
In this painting lesson we will see how to paint reflections in one color and white, but you must be aware that the different tones must be used in there right place to give us good depth, or you might say that 3 dimensional look.
The foremost trees need to go well up into the sky.
As the trees move back they must reach higher than the horizon but lower than the trees in front of them.
Do not have too much empty space at the edge of the scene.
The trees should be randomly spaced into a pleasant arrangement.
Any medium can be used, oil, acrylic, water color, pencil, crayon.
This scene can be painted in any dark color and white. I have chosen ultramarine blue.
Keep plenty of white in your sky so as to give the darker colored trees a very pale backdrop.
Keep your horizon line low and straight. You may use masking tape to produce a straight horizon line. Practice the thin brush strokes before putting the fine branches into your picture.
Have the foreground trees very dark so as to give us good contrast with the background.
You may need to thin the paint to get those fine lines.
We use a great technique of painting the reflections and ripples before we paint the trees.
The colors.
Here we are using ultramarine blue and white.
You might like to try another dark color, Prussian blue, indigo blue, burnt sienna, burnt umber, phthalo green, burnt umber or similar strong dark colors.