Painting ponds?

[FramFramson]

I am working on a series of ponds surrounded by tall grass. The kind that can serve equally well as the low point in a meadow, a watering hole for a farm, or (when several are assembled together) swampy terrain. They are simply pieces of MDF with teddy bear fuzz grass (dyed green). The water effect will actually be a thin coat of artist's gel medium.

What I am trying to figure out is how I should paint the ponds. The "water" will be a very thin coat, so the paint is crucial for a good look. All blues seems a little too fake, but I don't want them to be too muddy-green either. Should I paint them paler grey-blue as a reflection of a clear sky or have more of an earthy tint?

Also, they will not be super deep, but will still need to show depth... what sort of colour bleed/fade/gradations would work well?

I'd love to see some nice examples.

[Mitch K]

"Should I paint them paler grey-blue as a reflection of a clear sky or have more of an earthy tint? "

My experience of fishing lots and lots of small ponds and lakes is that unless the weather is very clear and bright, the water looks a brownish-grey.

It also depends on the geology, amount of life present etc as to how clear or murky they are...

You tend to see things are a bit clearer close to the edge, but it rapidly fades out with depth and distance.

Google some of the coarse fishing websites in the UK - that should help you.

[generulpoleaxe]

[FramFramson]

That's a pretty decent option (thanks for the ideas guys), and darker seems to be the way to go, but they seem to be concentrating more on selling the water effect than painting the water. It's also hard to see what colour that is... it seems like a very dark and muddy green? Does anyone have some other good examples?

Photos are good (and I've looked at quite a few) but there's a difference between colours in photos, colours as they appear in real life, and colours used in tabletop terrain to imply realism.

I'd like to have a look at as many examples of real tabletop terrain (railroad models are fine too) as I can before committing to the painting. It's easy enough to repaint if it looks wrong, but not so much after adding the water effects - and you're really only to have the look "click" after the water's added.