I am now ready to paint the water in front of the dock and up the river. The dock serves ocean going vessels (container ships and freighters). I have two qquestions.
Should I put down earth on the veneer before painting to provide a bottom texture?
What colors should I use for:
a. The deep water.
b. The shallower water toward the banks of the river.
c. The shallows next to the banks.
do you live near water? How does it appear to you?
Water is not “clear”, nor even “blue” or “aqua”, {except for beachy areas in some islands}.
Many choose a brownish-greenish hue for water.
You could vary the greenish more for deeper areas, and brownish more for inland areas, especially if it is to be 'rapid flowing". The rive near me always appears “muddy”. But a nearby stream flow of “meandering” is more clear with LOTS fo rocks expose on “Slow days” - that is unless there is heavy rains and storms…then it, too, gets “muddy” with wild runoff.
Also, for areas upstream and don’t forget teh details, think about the things that are also in the stream bed, such as your talus rocks, and then there are tree branches, broken tree stumps, uprooted trees, maybe a raised “mini island”-with or without trees. Don’t forget bushes and reed-like material along banks too. If it has a commercially revamped look to it,…don’t forget the Rip Rap along areas that may have previously “washed away” or are prone to overflow. Hey, if you cna find them…even a tire or shopping cart could have made its way into the water way.
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It depends what method you’re going to use. If you’re using resin for water, you may want to put in things like sand or rocks etc. at least in the river portion, since the resin will allow some of the river bottom to show through. If you’re planning on painting a flat surface, then add “water” by adding gloss medium or something similar, then you’d just be painting.
I will be pouring resin after painting. I planned on putting down rocks along the river bank. Grteenish brown for the river is fine, but what about the deep water along the dock.
Water along the working docks I’ve seen can be kind of black/dirty usually for brackish water. You can google for pics of the areas you’re trying to model. Most working docks I’ve seen are in bays, back sides of islands–not open to the big water at the beach. This avoids the problems of surf moving the vessels too quickly. Don’t forget to model effects of tides on dock, etc.
Richard
The picture that I have saved for the Port of Stockton shows a greenish yellow near the dock and gradually going to blue as you go out to the river.
The port water colour depends on the condition/characteristics of the water. Is there a fresh-water flow into one end of the harbour, say from a large river? You could get anything from obvious sediments to large swaths of very clear and dark water.
I have been in ports where the water looked very clean and in ports where the water was frankly scary. The scarier, the more opaque, garbage riddled, and green.
Unless you want the look of a tropical port with heavy traffic and some pollution, you would do well to paint the bottom a mixture of grey and dark teal. The grey should be no lighter than medium slate, but I went darker on my last construction, which was a river on my outdoors photography module. Over that dark, but not black or brown, base, I poured a single layer of two-part epoxy mixed with a tiny drop of green and yellow, half-drops really in the batch of about a full cup of epoxy, and I also added about a 1/4 teaspoon of plaster of Paris dry powder. Once the epoxy had cured, I layered it with a smear of gel gloss medium and stippled it lightly with the side of the applicator brush. Foam brushes work well.
The San Juaquin River, which is lthe longest in northern California at 366 miles long is very wide. It runs from the high Sierras west north of fFresno then north through Stockton before emptying into San Pablo Bay, where it joins with the Scaramento River before moving out to sea through San Francisco Bay.
There are five different hues of teal. You mention a dark teal. Which one are yu talking about?
TEAL (web color) (Hex: #008080) (RGB: 0, 128, 128)
Teal Blue (Plochere) (Hex: #367588) (RGB: 54, 117, 136)
Steel Teal (Crayola Silver Swirls) (Hex: #5F8A8B) (RGB: 95, 138, 139)
Teal Green (www.99colors.net) (Hex: 006D5B) (RGB: 0, 109, 91)
This is a picture I took at the Treasure Coast Model Railroad Club in Florida. The resin used for the water was tinted, I believe, to get this murky green effect.
On my own layout, I used a lot of black, blue and dark green on the base of this area, before starting to pour the water.
When finished, it looked like this.
For my own water area, I use much less tinting in the water, but I do use a bit to get more “optical depth” and still let me see the structure underneath, particularly where the water is supposed to be clear like in a still pond.
Teal Blue in the middle is close, but I would have mixed it even darker in shade since I make my own by mixing craft acrylic paints. Try mixing some medium blue and some plain green, about 1/3 blue to 2/3 green. Then add a dollop of medium-dark grey. Paint that over your surface. If you wish, a slightly browner tint nearest the shore to simulate less depth and more light penetration/reflection from the bottom.
Thanks Selector, that is exactly what I needed to know. For the river, I guess, I will cut back on the green, since the picture that I have of the wate rin thee San Juaquin river looks a lot bluer and kind of blend them near the lift bridge.
Here is a whole pages of variosu water pictures to choose color from:
http://www.freeimages.co.uk/galleries/nature/water/index.htm
here is more “blue water”:
http://www.free-pictures-photos.com/water/index.htm
Infact here is a page of copywrite free images of water links you can explore:
http://www.5earch.com/?s=free+images+water&gclid=CNGm8Le12rACFUYTNAodzltl1Q
Oh, I see you have what selector said as your need fulfilled.
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Here are two pictures of the teal blue that I used for the base coat. The first is the San Juaquin River. I will blend a blue wash from in front of the lift bridge back up the river to give the water a bluer river look.The second is along the dock. When I have the scenary in I will pour epoxy for the water.
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That looks fine. If you don’t mind an honest assessment, it looks to me like you could use just a bit more blue, at least in the middle third, and also that you did not add any medium-dark grey? When I made my diorama above, I just imagined what it should look like and felt that a fairly dark grey was going to help in the teal intuitively. Happily, I am pleased with the way it turned out.
Think about it. You can always make a medium heavy wash of grey and water, and just paint one thin layer over the middle third. If you hate it, paint over it.
Selector:
Thank you, I think the colr came out the way I want it. I did add a medium dark grey to the blue green. In your post ablve you first memtion a blue wash in the middle third then later a grey wash. I am confused as h what you are talking about.
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First, my apologies: I forgot that this is a harbour and not a river course. I thought maybe it could have been darker in the middle third of the river bed than it appears. It looks all the same, which a real river normally does not. A canal with vertical concret walls, yes, but not a natural river bed or a shore/harbour.
If you take the entire width anywhere along your water course and divide it into thirds, you get:
----------------/-------------------/----------------- I was meaning that the middle of the three should be noticeably darker. Maybe a black wash, or a dark grey wash, even a very dark blue. You want to simulate depth.
However, if this is not a river with confining banks on either side, and a harbour, then you might only want the third closest to the shore to be as light as you have it, and the other two would both be quite dark, say if it is a harbour with a dredged bottom that is mostly at an even depth. Therefore, nearest docks/wharfs, you would have it pretty consistently deep, and it would therefore be dark-looking.
Sorry, again, for confusing it all.
Selector:
No apolagy necessary. Maybe I did not make myself clear. The docks are along the river (see the picture). I plan to have a ship at the dock. Maybe the third nearest the aisle should be bluer and I should blend that up into the river with the wash that I was planning to use for the river.
Nice photo. Sure, whatever makes intuitive sense. Nothing is cast in concrete, anyway, and you wouldn’t be the first to paint over a layer of epoxy or fake water of some other kind, an then start layering the water once more. It happens.
Note that the water here has a pleasing colour, with some variation, but that it is also quite opaque. I had the idea of using a pinch of plaster powder in my epoxy mix, as I mentioned earlier, because I was at the point where I had nothing to lose…I disliked what I had so much. It turned out better than I had hoped.
I have not poured the epoxy and will not be doing so for some time, so painting a blue wash over the teal was my intention for the river area. I may expand that to include the outer 1/3 of the dock area as well.