I am fascinated with calm water paintings, I love walking along lake sides as the water is often very calm, clear and you can see the bottom of the lake near the shore. I find this to have a very calming effect on me and love to unwind by walking along the lake.
Creating the water scenes for me after composing my painting is to block fill the colors in right away, I will put the desired color in the sky and water first as that will set the tone of the painting, leaving the canvas white and filling the color afterwards changes the tone and intent of the painting that you may find undesirable.
Then I will block in my stones using a combination of colors, this is where I get to experiment with combinations of color blends by combining many different colors and shapes together and trying to get my basic composition. I don’t try to get to picky or fancy I just put in the background colors as I will be painting over much of it though if I come up with a great color combination I look for ways to save it in the final painting. I may use metallic paints here like gold, copper and silver and interference paints from Golden to provide reflective surfaces under the water.