We just finished up an intense 2 day workshop with local wildlife artist Mark Kelso. Mark demonstrated a variety of techniques that he uses to create extremely detailed surface textures in his paintings. During the six hour session on Saturday, he took participants through his process from sketching basic geometric forms to creating a photorealistic eye and the fur coat of a wolf. Working in successive layers of thin washes and minute brushstrokes, Mark works from light to dark in a method similar to hatching. 

Today, Mark demonstrated a scumbling technique that he uses to create the surface texture of water. He began by mixing the overall surface with two coats of a medium to dark value of blue. After it was completely dry, he used a lighter value of blue and began scumbling in the highlight areas. Slowly he adjusted his values and colors as built up layers of this texture to create the highlights, shadows, and reflections in the water. He finished the surface off with a few key hard edge strokes in the lightest highlight areas and the darkest shadow areas.