UWS November 2018 Mini Workshop
How to Paint Water with Brian Thayne
The relaxed atmosphere of Brian Thayne’s Mini Workshop took some of the stress out of learning to paint water. He reinforced the idea that your drawing is the most important part of any painting – it helps you to see. An artist can see what others cannot.
Brian’s theory that you “paint everything except the water” let us place the trees, rocks and sky in our compositions – what’s left is the water! Using a mixture of Prussian Blue and Yellow Ochre, we brushed in the areas of water, leaving lots of white. Next we added colors into this wet paint to highlight the reflections on the water. Maintaining white is the key to painting water with ripples, cascades, reflections or waterfalls. Also, “Value is more important that color.”
Brian grew up in Utah and was influenced by Glen Turner and Bob Marshall and was fortunate enough to attend their classes at BYU.