By the Fountain: Step 4
After messing around with a few different approaches to the water, I found one that seemed to work pretty well. Because water is an almost perfect blend of reflection and transparency, and the form of free-falling water is such that it gives a very strong lens distortion effect to anything behind it, it can seem to be almost random when viewed up close. I found it helped to first look for very large patterns such as those created, by the shadow beneath the concrete, and block those in first. Into that paint layer I worked the smaller shapes created by the form of the falling water. A very distinct property of highly reflective surfaces is the very hard transition from light to dark. This sort of thing is tricky to paint wet-on-wet, so I allowed the paint to dry somewhat, and then sharpened the outlines of the shapes with thin paint and a liner brush. I also added the few areas of unique and/or unusually bright highlights. The water in the pool at the base of the fountain was much more straightforward. As tedious as the bulk of the work was, it progressed relatively quickly, and I am really pleased with the overall effect. The splash at the bottom, and the freefalling droplets were actually really fun to paint, and I expect I will be painting a lot more water in the future.
