Seascape Painting Part I: The Landscape

This Photoshop tutorial will show you how to complete an underwater landscape painting step by step. This is part one of a two part series. Seascape Painting Part II will show you how to draw the fishes and apply finishing touches to the painting.

Preview of Final Results

Seascape Part I: The Landscape Photoshop Tutorial

Program: Photoshop 7
Difficulty: Beginner
Estimated Completion Time: 20 minutes

*This tutorial was meant to be completed using a pen tablet. If you are using a mouse, the brush sizes will be irrelevant. However, a good estimate for brush sizes when using a mouse is about 1/3 the size of the brush I am using.

Step 1

Open a new project (16 x 20 inches, 300 pdi).

Step 2

Use color #0095A2 and the paint bucket tool to fill in the background layer with a teal blue.

Step 3

Make a new layer titled “ocean floor” above the background.

Step 4

Block in the ocean foreground with color #A87300 (261 pixels, opaque, hard edged round brush).

Step 5

Indicate the major shadows with color #926400 and the same brush.

Step 6

Highlight the floor with color #AF7800.

Step 7

Make a new layer “coral” above the other layers.

Step 8

Now using color #C80059 (165 pixel brush), block in 2-3 coral bunches. These corals look kind of like little stubby trees, with short, rounded arms.

Step 9

Now, using a 90 pixel opaque brush and color #AA004C add shadows to the coral.

Step 10

Using the same brush, highlight the center of the coral stocks with color #E50066.

Step 11

Use the magic wand tool to select the area around the coral. Now, select the inverse (shift + ctrl + I), and copy and paste the coral onto a new layer.

Move the new coral so that it matches up with the coral beneath it.