How to Paint a Boat in Watercolors

watercolor art demonstration, Part 1 of 2

Clematis Boat, Christchurch, New Zealand

This is the fishing boat "Clematis" moored in the estuary at Christchurch, New Zealand.

This is the scene we will paint today, using watercolors on Saunders 300gm paper.

Always use good quality paper, as washes etc. will be easier.

Computer Aided Design:

The image is converted to greyscale and the contrast level is adjusted to give a faded image, this reduces the amount of ink used during printing.

Using the poster function on your printer, it can be printed to any size required, spread over several sheets of paper. For those who want to see an alternative method of printing across multiple pages (or for those who have printers without this feature), be sure to check out our tutorial!

Sheets are trimmed and glued together ready to trace onto your watercolor paper.

Line Drawing

Image was transferred to watercolor paper using "Graphite transfer paper", wax free type.

If the lines are too strong, use a putty eraser to lighten before painting.

Time to set up your palette! The colors used are:

Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber,French Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue, Light Red, Alizarin Crimson, Paynes Grey

Unless you are extremely confident in laying fast washes and painting around objects, I would suggest you mask off the boat and the white reflections in the water.

I use "Art Masking Fluid for Watercolor" made by Winsor and Newton.

The background houses and radar dome on the boat's superstructure were also masked.

Mix up a wash of raw sienna.

With the paper upside down and the board tilted at about 15 degrees, apply a graduated wash from the tree lines to the top of the paper.

Dilute the wash with clear water as you work towards the top.

The next wash is applied before the first one dries.

Using a mixture of Ultramarine with a touch of light red, apply a wash to top left corner allowing the paint to run wet into wet.

On the lower part of sky, just run the paint in streaks across the paper in a diagonal direction and allow it to blend.

Allow sky to dry.

Paint in the distant trees using payne's grey with a touch of raw sienna, changing to raw umber as you reach the waterline.

Before this dries add some payne's grey to give the trees some shape - soft edges will be produced as the original wash is still wet.

Houses and a small jetty were painted in on the far shore.

Very little detail or tone as they are in the distance.

Just a hint of activity!

Some detail is also painted to far right shoreline, keeping it simple and distant. Use a diluted mix of paint.

Mix ultramarine blue and payne's grey.

Using horizontal brush strokes, paint the water in, leaving some of the paper showing through.

Use blotting paper to lift some of the wet paint, creating lighter vertical bands.

The narrow strip at shoreline will be painted later.

Use cobalt blue across the foreground in close diagonal bands of color.

Fold a piece of blotting paper in half to give a thicker edge.

While the paint is still wet, blotting paper is used to lift some of the paint.

While held on edge, the angle of blotter is varied to produce a variety of ripples.

The edge of the blotter paper should be changed frequently, as paint is absorbed.

To the left, you can see the results obtained after applying blotting paper to the wet wash.

The paint has to be blotted immediately after laying the wash, in order to get the maximum effect.

Progress: sky and background finished.

Boat and white reflections still masked with fluid.

First washes on water completed.

An additional wash is added to the background water, in order to emphasize the darker reflections.

The band next to the bank is painted using a thin wash of cobalt blue.

Also, the far right edge of water is painted with the same cobalt.

The reflection of the boat's bow line is painted first to give some direction and length of reflections as a guide.

Using different strengths of payne's grey, reflections of the hull and superstructure are painted around the masking fluid that is still in place.

The vertical reflections of the boat's masts are carefully painted following the lines of masking fluid.

No straight lines!

All reflections are now finished.

Lesson continues...