How To Paint The Ocean With Acrylics

In the words of Mohit Kaushik, “let the waves carry you where the light cannot” and in my words let your paintbrush carry you where words cannot! While many artists are intimidated by the vastness of painting an ocean, you don’t have to be. Painting with acrylics is a great way to create waves and water that can give your ocean that realistic touch you're looking for. This blog post will cover all of the tips and tricks you need. You’ll be shore to be mastering waterscapes in no time with the help of these tips from the experts. 

Step 1: Start with a reference image

Before you start painting, it’s helpful to use a reference photo for inspiration. Award winning waterscape artist and 5th Edition Juror, Carina Francioso explains in her interview with Founder of Boynes Emerging Artist Award, Chantal Boynes that she “starts all [her] paintings first with a reference image or images. Every painting is inspired by her own photography from her travels around the world. Once she has images, she will use one or several and piece them together on photoshop until she achieves her desired outcome.”

One thing to note about reference images is that you don’t need to translate every single aspect of the image into your work. Feel free to let your creativity, style and artistic authority shine through as you use the image as a springboard for your piece.

Step 2: Apply gesso to your surface

Awesome, so now that you have your reference photo, it’s time to apply gesso (using a thin flat brush) to the surface that you’ll be working on. As a general rule of thumb, we’d say apply approximately 2 thin layers just to make sure that your surface is properly primed properly so that your paint won’t get soaked up.

Step 3: Underpainting

Underpainting refers to the technique in which you begin your painting process by creating a monochrome image. Artist Nancy Reyner creates her underpainting with fluid acrylic paints in the colours of Phthalo Blue, Prussian Blue and Titanium White. She advises that “if you’re using heavy body paints add up to 20% water to keep texture and brushstrokes to a minimum. Mix each of these colors separately with a slow drying medium. You can also make a combination mixture of all three colors, also mixed with a slow drying medium. If you don’t have a slow drying medium, add some retarder into the colors instead.” You can use an array of tools such as brushes, knives and even rags for your application. The goal is to create a range of values (both light and dark hues of blue) as this will form your base coat for the sky, water and clouds. She explains that the values for water should be varied but stay in the range of middle to dark value tones -“Avoid light blues, as a dark blue background will show off the white waves added later.” Meanwhile, for the sky, light to medium blue values are ideal. Now, you’re going to let this first layer dry Let this first blue layer dry.

Francioso paints with a backwash or an underpainting and then using a gridding system, she proceeds to block the image in with more modelling and detailing - “This allows me to capture as much detail as possible, rendering the painting hyper-realistic.”

Another interesting technique is that of artist Dianne Griffiths who describes that when she uses heavily pigmented acrylic paints, she will mix them with water to achieve a water colour consistency following which she lets the water take over. Griffiths explains that “[she] won’t let it drip exactly, but will allow it to find its way across the canvas. It’s a bit of a gamble doing it this way, but you can get some great, watery effects. [She] then add just a bit of white to give a sense of waves crashing onto the beach.”

Step 4. Bring out your palette knife 

After your first layer has dried, you’re going to apply slow during clear acrylic medium with your knife over the areas where you wants your waves and clouds to be. Reyner notes that no paint should be added to the medium. She incorporates the wet-on-wet technique by adding Titanium White fluid paint onto the knife while the the medium is still wet with swiping and swirling motions. Before the medium has dried, you want to use your knife to scrape and remove some of the white paint and medium so that your blue under painting will shine through. Next, she suggests that you take a dry flat brush that you’ll be using to lightly wipe the white paint into upward lines. She leaves this second layer to dry for a day or more until she notices it’s no longer tacky.

Another great tip from Diane Griffiths when incorporating this dynamic tool is to “try using a palette knife for blending and merging colours together when painting water. The crisper edges of colour created by a palette knife make for a great water reflection. Water moves constantly, and this will help to create the impression of movement with just a few strokes of the knife” because she advises not to overdo it and use it carefully and sparingly.

Step 5. Time to spray and sand

After this layer has dried properly, Reyner sprays the dry painted surface with water and using 220 grit waterproof sandpaper, sands off some of the dried white paint from the previous layer. Then, she resprays the sanded area frequently with water, and wipes off the excess sanded paint with a rag or paper towel.

Step 6. Repeat the knife and sanding techniques

For the last step, Reyner advises that you repeat steps 4 and 5 “using whatever colors your painting needs. If it needs more darks, use black or a dark blue. If it is too white use blue paint.” Once the pain is applied, leave it to dry and then repeat the sanding process outlined in step 5. She typically repeats these steps as many times as is needed to get the results you want.

We believe that in the duration of your painting, as emphasized by Griffiths, always check your reflected lines “to ensure that they’re directly below the reflected object.” A ruler might come in handy here or you can try her technique of turning the painting upside down to spot those issues.