【Basics】How to Paint a Glass of Water

Here I will teach you on how to paint a glass of water.
First, begin with a line drawing as a start.
If you want to know how to draw lines for a glass cup, please refer to the article below.

【Basics】How to draw a glass with a ruler

① Base

First, let’s paint the base.
Since the glass is transparent, it’s natural to think you can see through the cup with the background color, but here we will paint it light blue to represent water.

② Shadow

Next we will paint the shadows.
Add a layer and clip it.
Assuming that there is water in the image, we will paint the shadow to follow the shape of the water.

Use the “Blur” brush tool to blur the edge.

③ Reflections

The next step is to paint the reflection in the cup.
Paint it with a color darker than the one you used for the shadow.

We will also blur the reflections.
You can use airbrush and blur to illustrate the reflection.

④ Highlight

Now we will draw the highlights.
Go to and layers and select “add and emit”.

Add lots of fine highlights to create the shimmering effect of the water.

Give it a blur.

⑤ Add the colors

Add a saturated light blue to make the overall image less dull.
Add a layer and select “add and emit”.
Paint the entire image with light blue.

Add more layers, add and emit light, and add light blue to the edge.

⑥ Blend the line drawing.

Since the line drawing is black and stands out a bit, reduce the opacity of line layer to blend it in.

And it’s complete！
I hope this helps a little!