Things to Remember When Painting Seascapes

For more than 40 years, Peter Gregor, MD, has worked as a cardiologist in California, West Virginia, and now Kentucky. In his free time, Dr. Gregor enjoys painting seascapes.

If you paint seascapes, here are two points to remember:

1. Pay attention to water reflections. Both water and wet sand are extremely reflective and capable of capturing anything happening in the sky. Tone is far more important than color, and for this reason, a seascape may appear more orange and yellow when the sun is setting and more gray when the sky is overcast. 

2. Check the foam. There are two types of foam in seascape paintings: 
Wave foam and surface foam. Wave foam sprays above the wave or is created when a wave breaks against itself or a surface. When you’re painting, make sure that surface foam follows the curve of the wave and that wave foam has soft edges. 
Surface foam rests on top of the water and is usually seen near a wave’s break. Seen from above, and using only the right brain to pick up the edges of patterns, there is often a suggestion of a recurring figure of eight or, seen in the horizontal, this looks like the infinity sign. There is an excellent book about painting water by Bert N Petri called The Complete Guide To Painting Water. In addition, seafoam must follow the same perspective and tone rules as everything else.