How to Draw Water with Pen and Ink

In this post I will describe how to draw water with pen and ink. Basic techniques for drawing calm and turbulent water is first covered and this is followed by techniques to draw river/stream, waterfall, shoreline and wave of water. A big impact on believable drawing of water is correct depiction of reflection in the water based on its state. Always keep the following key point in mind.

Sharpness of the edges of reflection in water indicate to our mind the state of water. A still water will have well defined edges of reflection and as the turbulence in water increases, the edges of reflection become hazy. 

Drawing Water: Basic Water Stroke

Following shows a simple horizontal wavy line that indicates a water ripple.

This stroke when combined with appropriate reflection can be used to draw water as shown below.

Drawing Calm Water:

Vertical lines are very effective at drawing still reflection in calm water as shown below. The shape and size of reflection should always match the object for a believable depiction. Reflection doesn’t have to be exact but the overall shape should match. As mentioned above, the edges of reflection should be clean/well defined to indicate calm water.

Watch video demonstration of drawing still water on my YouTube channel.

Drawing Edge of Water:

Usually edge of water, like a river bank, needs  to be drawn when the drawing has water in foreground. In this case, use vertical lines to define the edge of water as shown below. To increase depth of edge, increase length of vertical lines.

This approach can be used to draw any edge. By adding water stroke and reflection, presence of water is conveyed as shown below.

Key Considerations for Drawing Reflection:

Following are 3 key points to remember regarding drawing reflection:

1. Only Part of Object is reflected in water as it moves away from water’s edge.

Compared to above, the post is set back in the drawing below and hence only part of it is reflected making its reflection smaller in comparison to it’s size.

2. The angle of object should be appropriately shown in reflection.

The size of reflection for objects at angle can get quite complicated. It is not necessary to get the exact angle right, instead focus on getting the overall direction correct.

3. Visibility of reflection decreases with height of object and clarity of water.

Reflection is most visible/darkest at the base. Reflection of branches and end twigs of the following young tree is barely discernible. Draw reflection using small dots or ticks to convey that effect.

Drawing Water: Adding Turbulence

Movement of water leads to distortion of edges of reflection. Turbulence in water is best indicated by using wavy horizontal lines to indicate distortion in the reflection due to turbulence. Add more ‘wave’ to the water stroke to indicate movement in water.

Watch video demonstration of drawing turbulent water on my YouTube channel.

Increasing Reflection Distortion to Indicate More Turbulence:

Increasing the distortion in reflection and making it darker gives impression of more turbulent water as shown below. Use appropriate level of distortion to indicate the level of turbulence you want.

Indicating Reflection Using Water Stroke:

In the techniques above, vertical lines were used for calm reflection and distorted reflection using horizontal lines were used to indicate turbulent water with water stroke added as well. Another technique is to use water stroke itself to indicate reflection by using more stroke to darken the area indicating reflection as shown below. Since stroke direction is horizontal, this technique can be used for drawing turbulent reflection.

Watch video demonstration of drawing water with movement on my YouTube channel.

The same technique can be used to draw water without explicit embankment as shown below.  In this case, darken the edge of water to show reflection and make sure to keep the edge of water very irregular.

Following is another example of water flowing across without an embankment.

Drawing Water Flowing towards the Viewer:

Above, we learned how to draw water flowing across in a landscape. Another option is to draw water flowing towards the viewer and in this case following ‘ripple’ stroke is used.

Following drawing shows use of this stroke to draw water flowing out from the post.

Following is another example where additional ripple stroke is used to indicate reflection. This technique works well for a wide object like the stones below but for a thin tall object like the post above, reflection using horizontal lines works better. Try both the techniques.

The ripples strength usually becomes less with distance though their size becomes bigger. Add some dark’s to increase the strength of ripples near the object and reduce it with distance. This gives a good sense of flow of water as shown below.

Drawing Falling Water:

Falling water, like in a waterfall, can be simply indicated by lines to indicate fall of water as shown below. To draw a waterfall at a distance, this is often sufficient. Ripple stroke mentioned above should be used to show water continuing to the viewer as shown below.

Same technique can be used to create multi level or cascading waterfall as shown below. Use ripple stroke to indicate water flowing down a slope and angular vertical lines to indicate water falling down.

Watch video demonstration of drawing a waterfall on my YouTube Channel.

Drawing a Stream/River:

A stream/river is indicated by using flowing lines to indicate flow of water in the desired direction. Click on the following link to learn how to draw a river step by step.

Drawing a Stream Through Woods:

A stream flowing through woods is a very pleasing composition. It uses combination of techniques we saw earlier. Click on the following drawing to learn how to draw a stream through the woods.

A very pleasing composition is a waterfall that continues as a stream. Techniques for drawing falling water and stream/river can be combined to create such a drawing from imagination anytime. Following is an example. Learn to draw this waterfall continuing as a stream step by step.

Drawing a Wave of Water:

A wave of water, like in a shoreline, is also a charming addition to any landscape with water. Front of wave of water is very irregular and this should be properly indicated to bring out the feel of wave of water. Click on the following drawing to learn how to draw a shoreline.

Curved broken lines can be used to indicate a wave of water crashing on shore and reflecting as shown in following drawing. Click here for step by step tutorial to draw such crashing wave of water.

Templates & Workbooks:

Click here to download PDF with templates to practice drawing water. Better yet, vol 4 of my pen and ink drawing workbooks covers techniques discussed above and more for drawing water in detail and are ideal for learning to draw pen and ink landscapes. Try them today.

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Videos:

Watch video demonstration of drawing water in pen and ink at my YouTube channel.

Here are some of the drawings where I have used water.

This completes the tutorial. Practice often and have fun. If you liked this content, do leave a ‘like’ or ‘comment’ below to let me know it is helpful. This motivates me to write and share more content. Also feel free to share it with your social media using following links.

Happy Drawing,

Rahul

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