How to Paint Realistic Water Reflections – Wiconsin

🎨 Blog Post by Dariush Nateghi 

How to Paint Realistic Water Reflections – Gallery Lake Geneva

There is a moment just after sunrise on Geneva Lake when the water is so still it becomes a perfect mirror. The sky, the boathouses, even the early-morning gull, all hover in two places at once—one above the horizon, one below it. As an artist who has spent thirty years chasing that moment on canvas, I can tell you: capturing water is really about capturing silence.

Gallery Lake Geneva—our state’s “Best Art Gallery 2025”—has invited me to share the studio tricks I use when I want that silence to sing. Below is the step-by-step I teach in my sold-out workshops held right here at 830 West Main Street, steps away from the very shoreline we’ll be painting.

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1. Start with the Stillness Test

Before you squeeze out a single color, take a photo of the scene. Flip it vertically in your phone and compare the reflection to the actual object. 

- Are the angles identical? 

- Are the darks darker in the reflection? 

- Are the lights slightly muted? 

If you answer “yes” three times, you’ve found the perfect reference. Print it, tape it to your easel, and resist the urge to “improve” Mother Nature.

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2. Build the Water First—Yes, First

Most artists paint the sky, trees, docks, then try to squeeze the reflection underneath. That’s like laying carpet before you pour the foundation. Instead, block in the entire water area as one large, mid-value wash using a mix of:

- Ultramarine Blue 

- Alizarin Crimson 

- A whisper of Yellow Ochre 

While the wash is still glossy, drop in the vertical shapes of the reflected objects with a floppy mop brush. Hold the handle like a conductor’s baton and pull straight down—no wrist flicks, no side-to-side. Gravity does the realism for you.

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3. The 15% Rule

Reflections are never the same value as the object. They are approximately 15% darker and 10% less saturated. Mix a separate, “reflection palette” on the corner of your glass table:

- Add a touch of Burnt Umber to every sky color. 

- Add a touch of Dioxazine Purple to every green. 

- Add a touch of Payne’s Gray to every skin tone (yes, even portraits can have water reflections). 

Label the piles with a toothpick so you don’t “cheat” and grab the brighter original color out of habit.

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4. Disturb the Mirror—But Only at the Bottom

Perfect reflections feel artificial. While the upper two-thirds of your reflected shape should be razor-sharp, break the lower edge with horizontal licks of a 1-inch decorator brush. Load it with clean water plus a rice-grain of white gouache. Drag lightly across the surface, letting the canvas grain skip like a stone. The result: ripples that read as wind without turning your lake into a washing machine.

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5. Temperature Shift = Distance

Warm light = cool reflection. 

Cool light = warm reflection. 

If your sunset is throwing orange sparks across the water, mix the reflection with a cool violet-grey. If the scene is overcast and bluish, sneak some warm burnt sienna into the reflected shadows. This temperature flip is what makes the water feel deep, even when your paint layer is microscopically thin.

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6. The Geneva Lake Secret – Micro-Highlights

Stand on the Riviera pier at 6:17 a.m. in July and you’ll see thousands of diamond flecks—tiny sun squares that ride the ripples like LEDs. I recreate them with a fan brush loaded with pure Titanium White plus a molecule of Cadmium Yellow Light. Flick upward, never sideways, and vary the pressure so some squares are crisp, some ghosted. Miss this step and your water looks like matte plastic.

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7. Varnish Like a Sailor

Water paintings need glass-smooth finish. After the oils cure (or your acrylic layer is fully dry), brush on two thin coats of Gamvar Gloss, cross-hatching like you’re swabbing a deck. The refractive index jumps, the darks drop another 5%, and suddenly your reflection sinks below the paint film—an optical trick every collector in the gallery loves to run their fingers over (even though we politely ask them not to).

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See It, Touch It, Paint It

The best way to understand these steps is to watch them live. Drop by Gallery Lake Geneva any Saturday this summer; I’ll be in the back studio from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. demonstrating with a palette knife and answering questions between brushstrokes. Bring a reference photo of your own dock, your speedboat, or the vintage Chris-Craft you’ve been dreaming to paint. We’ll mix the Geneva Lake Secret color together and, if you’re brave, you’ll leave your own 6” x 8” reflection panel in our community “Lake of Mirrors” wall.

Art, like water, is meant to be shared.

— Dariush Nateghi 

Resident Teaching Artist, Gallery Lake Geneva 

830 West Main Street, Lake Geneva, WI 53147 

[www.gallerylg.com](http://www.gallerylg.com) | (262) 248-2222