How to Paint a River
Learn how to paint a river with these easy steps. Try this acrylic tutorial with this simple painting with artist Jackie Partridge. How to paint a river with a palette knife is easy! I will show you step by step landscape painting with a palette knife in this acrylic tutorial! Learn palette painting techniques below for how to paint a river.
How to Paint a River
step one
Gather the supplies you will need:
a pallet knife
a canvas
cobalt, blue ultramarine, blue paint
titanium white paint,
mars black paint
cadmium yellow paint
cadmium red paint
a container of water
a flat 1 inch brush
a number 6 round brush
a palette knife
a rag
and a palette
Step two
Begin to paint the background of your sky and river start by taking a wash with your ultramarine blue to paint the sky you're going to paint the top 1/3 of the canvas you're going to leave the bottom 2/3 to paint the river bank and to paint the river. With a piece of coloured chalk you can begin to draw the shape of your riverbank the riverbank is going to be wider in the foreground and more narrow closer to the horizon line of the background of the river once you have drawn the river you can do a light wash by mixing some green paint with some cobalt blue and cadmium yellow to paint the river banks. You can paint a wash of cobalt blue to paint in the river. We are adding washes because we will add layers of textured paint with the palette knife after the background coat has dried completely.
Step three
You can begin to paint the sky with the palette knife using ultramarine blue you can paint the darkest part of the sky at the top. Then you can add in some titanium white and mix them cobalt blue to create lighter sky tones. Your sky is going to start darkest at the top of the canvas and move to a lighter blue in that bottom one third section of the canvas. You can add in some white clouds by using titanium white paint with your palette knife.
Step four
You can paint the riverbank by mixing a variety of greens, feel free to watch my mixing green video. You are going to add darker greens closer to the riverbank to act as the shadows of the grass. You can add lighter greens by mixing titanium, white and cadmium yellow towards the top of the grasses, you want to mix a variety of greens so that your grass looks more realistic. You can add some browns and a little bit of red in with your greens as well to help make the grass of the river bank look more natural.
Step five
Once the sky has dried, you can use some of those blue colours and bits of white, and reflect them into the river that you have created in the bottom section of your canvas. You can mix in some greens with your blues and add other shades of blue into the water to help it look more realistic, you can add small dabs with your palette knife to make the waves of the water look more natural and realistic
I hope you have found these steps to be helpful. If you would like to watch this video tutorial on YouTube click the video below to watch the link be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to see new acrylic, painting tutorials as they come out and other videos on acrylic painting tips. If you want to learn more about palette knives, you can click on this video here.
