[cytias]

hey, i've been lurking for about 1-2 years? now... plan on posting up some pictures of my own soon, but right now i have a question... it's more for something i'm sculpting out of plaster but i figure knowing how to draw it would help tons. so, how do you draw water? and i'm not talking calm, ocean sun-sets ripply water, i need stormy, splashing, crashing water... my sculpture is a small semi-bust of a person drowning, only his face and fingers of one hand visible... the only problem is i chose probably the hardest thing imagineable to sculpt! well, i like challenges... any suggestions or tutorials on drawing/sculpting water? Thanks, much appreciated.
~Matt

[Ian Jones]

Wow, what a question. Being the physics genious that I am, I will give you a formulae to calculate stormy water.

a + b = c

a = bombdive
b = pool
c = stormy weather!



On a more serious note... Just treat it like any other object to be drawn. Break the process up into easy stages to avoid complexities. Observe reference material. Observe reference material again. Consider the form of the stormy water first, and for the sake of sanity disregard the transparency of water for a moment. Then think about the colour, transparency, reflections, refractions and other effects and once again simplify. If an area has thousands of little reflections just consider the major shapes and work on them before delving into details. If you can generalise a shadow here... and a reflection there... then it is so much easier!

I'm not saying that you should actually draw the water as a matte, opaque form for later working of transparency etc.. I'm just saying that if you break up the complexities in your mind, then things should be a lot easier.

Good luck!

ps. My advice is not neccesarily based on prior experience! haha! I haven't painted stormy water before!

[Phileasfogg]

If i were to approach actually sculpting a storm ridden section of ocean i think first i would try not to think of how it will look in the end. Keep your marks and forms in the plaster loose and flowing. Nature isn't preditable this is what you want to try and capture. The more loose you are initailly the more you might surprise yourself with unexpected marks. The fine details can go in last try and not consider your marks too much. One personal criticism i would have of a lot of sculpted water is that sometimes it looks too considered in its forms and ends up looking like globules of glue or like something that has melted. In your stormy sea you're trying to capture the energy of the ocean, reflect this in your sculpting by being as energetic as possible. There's my two pennies worth anyway's. Thats quite a challenge you've set yourself but thats how we improve isn't it? The subject sounds very interesting, I'm looking forward to seeing it, good luck in your work.