How To Paint Ocean Waves 5 – Exercises to Develop Ocean Waves Forms -
©2008 Cricket Diane C Phillips

Take a small bowl and fill halfway with water, add two or three drops of blue food coloring and watch the swirls as you move it with a toothpick. What happens to the depth of contrast and shapes of color in the ocean waves are in the body of water now as it is moved around.

Now, place a dot of oil (one large drop) gently on the surface of the blue water in the bowl. (Slide the oil slowly from a spoon onto the water’s surface.) What visual information tells you where the oil begins and the water ends? Is it a reflection of light, a ridge of darkness, both or something else? What does this tell you about the action of light and shadow in ocean waves?

Although ocean waves are not oil and water, they are several different distributions of water. And, they are as different in visual terms as oil and water.

Some of the same visual identifiers tell us about the difference. Science can tell us why waves behave the way they do and why we can perceive them as we do. But, to convey this dimensional information on a flat surface with paint, we need to express the visual identifiers that indicate depth, motion, edge, shape, shadow, light and cohesiveness within the picture plane.

The wave we see in the foreground is part of a bigger sea that stretches far beyond the picture plane. It is part of the sky because it reflects it and part of the foam it creates on the sand. It is part of the next wave behind it and is drawing up the wave that came before it.

The mind of the viewer can perceive all of this if we offer enough visual information to convey it. Because the foam of a wave is filled with air, it bubbles and froths. It changes in each microsecond it exists and moving toward, away or at an angle from the viewer, it casts its own reflections, shadows and light to the viewer.

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