Dynamic Seascapes

Introduction 6
My inspiration 8
Materials 14
Colour 24
Understanding the sea 32
Mark-making 40
Expression and dynamism 50

Wild seascape - Step-by-step project 70

Shimmering mist - Step-by-step project 84

Composition 96
Compositional basics 98, Point of view 100, Creating drama 104, Skies and light 110, Foreground: added elements 116, Texture, tricks and illusions 122

Creating mood and atmosphere 128
Elements of atmosphere 128, Stormy raging seas 130, Misty, ethereal atmosphere 132, Calm, shimmering waters 134, Dreamy atmosphere 136, Brooding mystery 138, Dreamy nostalgia 140

Afterword 142
Index 144

About Judith Yates

Judith Yates has worked as a professional artist since graduating from a fine-art painting degree course. She sells her work both privately and through a number of art galleries. Running parallel to her artistic practice, she runs painting workshops from her home studio, and tutors on art holidays in the Dordogne, France. Judith also works with several art societies, holding workshops and demonstrating a range of painting processes. She works from her busy studio at home using an array of techniques and media to recreate the sensual pleasures of the landscape and atmosphere of the coast.

The Artist

There's an old adage that you can never step in the same river twice. It could also be said that you can never actually see a wave. It is, after all, just a movement, albeit one given form by that least and most solid of substances: water. As a form, it's constantly changing and it's that change that makes it what it is. To paint a wave, therefore, requires the artist to freeze an infinitely small moment while also conveying the sense of motion and drama that a wave produces.

Judith meets this seemingly impossible challenge head-on in watercolour and acrylic, explaining techniques both of creation and application, She considers drama, serenity, light and reflections as well as skies, buildings and landforms. This is an exciting and thoroughly practical guide to painting seascapes that covers all the moods of the sea and a huge variety of ways to depict them.

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Amazon

Colourful and inspiring.

This book is packed full of beautiful colour paintings using the artists preferred water based paints and acrylics, each with a handy description explaining how the effects were achieved. There are chapters covering observation and materials followed by a very useful section on colour mixing and palettes to create mood and atmosphere. It describes how to first understand the sea with a section on capturing light through waves and how to paint the swell of the sea. There are some good ideas about using different brush and palette knife strokes and some clever tricks to give texture to your painting along with chapters on composition and foreground extras. There are also two detailed step-by-step paintings that you can follow.

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Leisure Painter

In her new book, Dynamic Seascapes, Judith Yates demystifies all aspects of painting the sea and shows you how to start painting your own successful seascapes full of atmosphere and drama. Judith is a professional artist and runs painting workshops from her home studio as well as tutoring art holidays in the Dordogne so she understands many of the problems faced by artists trying to capture a volatile environment. A mixture of traditional and more experimental techniques are employed and clearly explained in step-by-step sequences, using a range of media, including acrylic inks. There's detailed information on how to capture form and anatomy of a wave, as well as ways to use colour and light to add drama to the scene. Step-by-step projects include a wild seascape and shimmering mist, which will inspire you to create dynamic seascapes of your own. 

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Artbookreview.net

Social media gets a bad press. However, it was also responsible for the genesis of this book. The publishers of Leisure Painter and The Artist magazines put one of Judiths pictures on Twitter. I thought it looked interesting and decided to investigate further. It quickly became apparent that she is one of the best seascape artists Id seen for a long time, so I suggested that Search Press might like to talk to her. And here, a couple of years later, we are.

Water is one of the hardest subjects to paint. Its hardly ever static, has no real substance and no colour of its own, yet it presents in many different moods, almost all of them related to movement and surroundings. So, how do you represent that in a single image? Well, thats what the book is all about. The subtitle is how to paint seas and skies with drama and energy and it has that in spades.

Working in watercolour, acrylic, ink and mixed media, Judith will show you how to capture all the forms and moods of the sea, from a calm evening estuary to storm-blown waves breaking on a rocky shore. Although water is the primary subject, Judith does not forget the shorelines, landscapes and of course skies that make up a complete seascape. Shell show you how light both affects the appearance of water and is affected by it through refraction and reflection. Shell also demonstrate ways of capturing the solid appearance of a breaking wave and how to create the sense of power and movement that are essential to giving your image a feeling of being anything but static and two-dimensional.

There are plenty of examples, exercises and demonstrations as well as explanations of the way water behaves in just about every situation. The book is every bit as exciting as its subject.

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Crafts Beautiful

Lose yourself in the excitement and power of seascapes with Judith Yates' latest release Dynamic Seascapes. With sections on colour, composition, and creating atmosphere, this book is a comprehensive approach to painting the tumultuous ocean with a mix of acrylics, watercolour and acrylic inks. Judith uses a mix of traditional and more experimental techniques, and this combined with her mixed media approach means this is perfect for anyone looking to expand their creative horizons.

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Amazon Customer Review

Most "how to" books I've come across tend to have step-by-step instructions, but don't necessarily explain why a particular technique is used. In this book however, Judith Yates goes into detail on the paints, surfaces and techniques, so you can learn the skills to paint your own seas as well.

I've never been overly confident on mixing paints to get the exact colours I need, but Judith even includes a section on mixing for subtle tones, so you aren't left floundering.

The two step-by-step projects break down what looks like a "that's beyond my skill level" painting into much easier steps, where it feels like I can actually end up with something that looks like a dynamic sea at the end!

Overall I think this is a fantastic book, and it's also inspired me to try painting on different surfaces rather than just sticking with canvas.