Reflections on the road and road edges

Painting reflections on road with watercolor

Painting reflections on road Mt Hotham, Victoria. Finished watercolor painting.

Painting reflections on road. Finished watercolor painting Mt Hotham, Victoria

The first step to creating reflections on the road is to very lightly wet the road surface with a soft brush.

Then I quickly dropped in some of the tree and shrub colors, from the paint mixes I had left over from the previous steps, with downward strokes to create the reflections on the road surface. You cannot afford to fiddle with this or you will muddy up the road surface. I had very little paint in my brush as I wanted the reflections to stay in place rather than flow everywhere.

Remember, reflections on the road are always towards the viewer while shadows are away from the light.

I used some dry brush stokes at the interface between the green foliage and the roadway to make the connection between the two more real and believable.

Dry brush strokes to create edge between road and foliage

Dry brush strokes to create edge between road and foliage

I then left the painting to dry and looked it over. I later added some more foliage on the right hand side trees to bring that forward, the painting was finished so I signed it.

Should you have any questions about this demonstration or watercolor painting in general please let me know through my Contact page.