Testing the Water

Water can be as smooth and still as glass, and it can somersault angrily down a waterfall. It can trickle, babble, and dribble, or it can spray into a wild airborne mist. How do you capture water’s many personalities?

Throughout history, artists have found inspiration in all of water’s different forms. Just as varied are the methods they use to depict it in motion. The three artists featured here use different techniques to show water’s power. How does each artist use texture, along with shape and color, to evoke a particular mood in their artwork?

Water can be as smooth as glass. Or it can tumble down a waterfall. It can trickle, dribble, or spray into a wild mist. How do you capture water’s many forms? The three artists featured here use different techniques to show water in motion. How does each artist use texture, shape, and color to create a particular mood?

In the early 1830s, Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai made many woodblock prints featuring the ocean, waterfalls, and rivers. In his Kajikazawa in Kai Province (Kōshū Kajikazawa), above, the artist repeats shapes and colors to render the water’s surface texture. Hokusai uses a stippling technique, adding small dots to suggest the waves’ motion. Together the dense dots become a pattern and create texture. The edges of the white waves curl like fingers in every direction.

Hokusai uses only two shades of blue and black on the creamy paper. The background is a flat, smooth expanse, creating contrast with the turbulence in the foreground. This juxtaposition of textures emphasizes the sense of swirling movement in the water.

As a teen, Hokusai was an apprentice in a woodcarver’s workshop, where he learned how to make woodblock prints. This early experience helped him think about how to use texture to bring complex scenes like this to life.

Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese artist. As a teenager, he made woodblock prints. In the early 1830s, he made many prints of the ocean, waterfalls, and rivers. His Kajikazawa in Kai Province (Kōshū Kajikazawa), above, is one.

Hokusai repeats shapes and colors to give texture to the water. He adds small dots to depict the motion of the waves. This technique is called stippling. All the dots together become a pattern. The edges of the white waves curl like fingers in every direction.

Hokusai uses only black and two shades of blue. The white background is flat and smooth. This contrasts with the textured waves in the foreground to emphasize their movement.

White foam glides across the water as a wave crests in the work above. The Bahamas—islands known for the color of the surrounding ocean—inspired Albert Bierstadt to paint his 1878 The Shore of the Turquoise Sea. The painter carefully manipulates color and texture to suggest movement. Glossy blue fades into a translucent blue-green wave, permeated with light, before breaking into thick mist.

Born in Germany, Bierstadt moved to the United States as a child. He later became associated with the Hudson River School, a group of artists who painted landscapes. His reverence for nature is evident in this work’s realism—in his faithful depiction of the ocean’s spray and turbulent mood.

Albert Bierstadt painted The Shore of the Turquoise Sea, above, in 1878. He had just visited the Bahamas. These islands are known for their blue waters. The painter uses color and texture to suggest movement. The bottom of the wave is a glossy blue. This fades into blue-green at the crest then breaks into mist.

Bierstadt was born in Germany. He moved to the United States as a child. You can see his love of nature in how realistically he depicts the ocean, or in the work’s realism.

Hilary Pecis also expresses appreciation for nature, and her home state of California inspires many of her paintings. She created her 2024 Water Polo Practice, above, after watching a high school team train with the San Gabriel Mountains in the background.

She snapped a photo to help plan the composition, but she took artistic liberties with color. “In the photograph, the water showed a lot of movement,” she explains. “I wanted to simplify this while still conveying waves and reflections, so I focused on a specific palette of colors to create clarity.”

Using this limited color palette, she depicts reflections and movement on the water’s surface by creating a seemingly random pattern with highlights and shadows. The curving, organic shapes come together like a complex, textured jigsaw puzzle. Most of the shapes are a flat shade of blue or white. But some are flesh tones, reflecting the players’ faces in the water.

Which of the three works shown here feels most familiar? How does it echo your own experience of water?

Hilary Pecis also loves nature. Her home state of California inspires her work. She painted Water Polo Practice, above, in 2024. She had watched a real team train with mountains in the background.

Pecis took a photo to help plan the composition. But she kept the colors simpler than they were in real life. “In the photograph, the water showed a lot of movement,” she explains. “I wanted to simplify this while still conveying waves and reflections.”

Using a limited color palette, Pecis creates a pattern of highlights and shadows in the water. Most of her curving shapes are a flat shade of blue or white. But some are flesh tones, reflecting the players’ faces. The pattern creates movement.

Which of the three works shown here feels most familiar? How does it remind you of your own experiences with water?