Paint To Look Like Water

I want to paint the interior walls of our cabana (aka: poolhouse) to look like you are looking down through the swimming pool and how the water reflects and ripples on the bottom.

I’ve tried several things on my own and I’m still struggling with anything that looks good… any ideas?

photo credit: simply Rik

Hello Christina,

Your painting project sounds like a wonderful and creative idea for your pool cabana. I hope that we can help you.

First of all, I am not sure of your skill level, but the best suggestion I have would be to start gathering pictures of water. You may even want to take a photo of your pool and use that as a reference.

It is so much easier to go off of a picture.

From the pictures, you can try to mimic the look of water with different shades of blue. Do a wash of these colors and then use white mixed with glaze (1 part paint to 3 parts glaze) in order to create the ripples.

The great part about using glaze is that the paint becomes more movable and workable. You can wipe it off if you are not happy with your last brush stroke. You can also blend it with you finger to get a softer look.

You don’t want to just paint on the white ripples, you also want to blend them into the blue of the water in certain areas, to make it more realistic.

Here is a link to a photo of pool water ripples.
http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/161100/2/istockphoto_161100_pool_ripples.jpg

I hope that this helps. Please feel free to contact us again if you need any more help. Good luck on your painting project!!

The Complete Guide To Painting Water