Water with Waves Step by Step

Seaview on the surface

This is part of my continuing efforts to portray water in all its myriad forms. This time the subject is the Polar Lights Seaview submarine.

Step by Step

I will describe what I did.

Step 1. Painted an inexpensive plaque from Hobby lobby with dark green and blue acrylic paints.

Step 2. Added a ¼-inch wooden lip to keep the “water” in.

Step 3. Used clear silicone caulk (on sale at Lowes!)To glue the sub to the plaque and added the stern wake and the bow build-up. Let this fully dry before moving on. If you don’t the caulking will come out milky white.

Step 4. Poured about a 1/16 of an inch of Woodland Scenic’s Realistic Water tinted with Dr. Martins inks. This model took about 2 – 4 oz. of Woodland Scenic’s Realistic Water. That’s about ¼ to 1/3 of a bottle.
This stage was done in small doses. I mixed the Dr. Martins in with the water in small disposable cups a little at a time – better to err on the too little than too much; it will darken slightly when it dries.
Dr. Martins were used because I had them already. I like strong pigments to begin with these are strong. Any water-soluble ink should work fine. I really stayed to the green side of blue green.
Let this dry for a day or so.

Step 5. I then used Woodland scenic’s Water Effects to add smaller wakes and splashes.
I let this dry until it was clear, no paint was added.

Step 6. Finally, I gave it four coats of Minwax water based gloss polyurethane- that is it. I used Mixwax because I had it on hand from another project. the urethane was applied with a 1/2 inch soft brush- like a watercolor brush The minwax tied it all together- I only had the minwax hit the seaview part of the way up to make the sail look drier than the lower hull- the minwax extends to about 1/2 inch above the water

Wrap up/Summary

The only problem I had was the long drying /curing time - I suppose gentle heat would speed it up but you run the chance of the layers wrinkling or cracking- this is not a problem for me since I am always working on multiple projects and I can put it away and work on something else. This is about a year old now and it shows no sign of yellowing or cracking - it has a slightly rubbery feel to it and it attracts dust like crazy. Look at that sea-foam!