5 Tips for More Depth in Seascapes

Look for the basic perspective lines. In this example, the cresting waves are parallel with the shoreline. If the waves in your subject aren’t parallel with the shore, they would generally be parallel with each other. This means that from the shoreline to the horizon, the receding rows of waves would share a common vanishing point.

Pay attention to color temperature and saturation, particularly at the horizon. The sky at the horizon is often less saturated and can become warmer, depending on the specific lighting situation. In this case, I achieved this effect by scumbling a layer of light orange on top of the blue base layer. The water at the horizon often appears darker than it is, because the sky is relatively light in value. Comparing this to the darks in the foreground, I made the dark areas in the cresting waves darker and more saturated as they advanced.

The next element to focus on is scale. I made my marks bigger in the foreground and smaller and tighter as they receded. When working on an ocean surface, keep in mind that you’re observing a plane that recedes a great distance while only accounting for a short vertical distance on the canvas. In the reference photo, this area might appear somewhat flat, so to create depth, spend time observing the subtle difference in the scale of the texture as the waves recede.

The horizon line is sharp in the reference photo, but softening it helped to push it back. By contrast, sharpening the edges in the cresting waves brought them forward. To soften the horizon line, I used a mop brush and my finger. The cresting waves in the foreground were created by pushing down into the base, lifting vertically, and lightly dragging toward the back side of each wave. Softening the back side of each wave further helped to suggest the sea spray and created more contrast between the edges in the painting.

Finally, look for contrasting textures between the sand and water. I switched to a palette knife to emphasize that contrast and bring the sand forward by creating contrast against the brush strokes in the water and sky. Starting with the highlights, I lightly scraped the palette knife across the paper, following a path I imagined the knife would take if it were conforming to the undulating surface of the sand.