I was recently asked by a reader about how to paint fog with watercolor. Fog is very easily painted with watercolors because it is so simple to create soft edges and light tones with this beautiful medium.
If you look at a foggy scene you will notice a number of things.
The effects of areal perspective, i.e. the effect of atmosphere on perspective, are made greater when there is fog or mist.
The fog makes distant objects much lighter, the edges softer, and the colors duller.
Let us look at these in turn.
You can see from the photo below of a harbor in fog that the distant boat on the left is much lighter than the boats on the right.
The distant boat is also quite a bit less distinct than the boats in the foreground. If there was no fog the boat on the left would not appear so indistinct. The fog is making the effects of atmosphere much greater.
You can also see that all the colors in this water landscape are much duller than they would have been if there was no fog.
Just like in normal atmospheric perspective, distant objects will appear a little bluer than those in the foreground. However because of the fog blocking the blue sky, this effect will not be as great but worth including anyway.
How to paint fog
Here are the the key steps for how to paint fog with watercolor:
- Paint the sky area with a very pale watercolor under painting of a light grey. If you are painting a water scene then continue this under painting into the water area. Make sure the water area is painted with stronger tones towards the foreground. Make sure the distant horizon is just a very soft edge, if it is noticeable at all.
You can see the full demonstration of how this misty harbor scene was painted here: How to paint fog with watercolor – harbor scene
- If you are painting trees in the distance try to paint them in while the sky is still wet so that they have very soft edges.
- When painting a watercolor landscape use greyer (duller) colors than you would use if there was no fog in your landscape. Do not use bright colors in your painting as the fog would grey them all off.
- Make your distant objects very light in tone.
- Make foreground objects sharper, but not bright in color. This will increase the feeling of fog in the atmosphere.
- Any shadows will be indistinct if visible at all. However remember to make sure that any shadows are away for the direction of light.
- If your watercolor painting has some fog sections and some bright sky areas then you will need to modify the above steps. The fog sections of your painting will use the above information while the sections in bright sky will use normal areal perspective techniques.
Next time there is some fog where you live go outside and have a close look at the scene. Nothing will show you how to paint fog better than by spending a little time observing it in real life.
Keeping the above points in mind you should be able to observe most of the effects. This will help you greatly when working on your own watercolor painting. Needless to say the same points above apply to all mediums but watercolors a ideally suited to painting foggy scenes.