Studying Details – The subtle intricacies of the  appearance of water is easily overdone. When you look at a droplet you can over think and over render trying to achieve the clarity. I have learned that a simple and limited wash of color and light are more effective and often painting what you actually see is harder than what you logically think you see.

The problem in capturing water is that you don’t paint the droplet itself, instead you paint what is around the droplet and how the colors and light change in relation to the object.

When the logical brain sees an image it tends to fill in the gaps and details with what it assumes.

When rendering water effects, it can easily become overworked when you paint what you think it should look like instead of what you actually see.

A droplet is a very simple object actually. There is a soft dark shadow that is the color of what is beneath the droplet. Next there is the body of the droplet which is usually a gradation from the shadow on the surface, highlights alone one edge and a faint outline of light and a droplet is successfully rendered.