8957 Lily Pond
Jerry Yarnell – Inspiration of Painting PBS Television Series

A peaceful lily pond stretches across a sunlit landscape, filled with floating lily pads, soft reflections, and gentle ripples of water framed by trees and grasses along the shoreline. In this intermediate acrylic painting lesson, Jerry guides you step-by-step through creating this tranquil scene in a 188 minute session on an 18x24 canvas, capturing the calm beauty of still water and natural surroundings.

You’ll learn how to build a strong horizontal composition, using the pond surface to lead the viewer’s eye while balancing foreground elements like logs and shoreline details. Jerry demonstrates how to block in major shapes first, then refine them with controlled brushwork to maintain clarity and structure.

Special focus is given to painting water reflections, lily pads, and subtle surface textures, using layered color and value changes to create depth and realism. You’ll also explore how to paint surrounding trees and soft atmospheric backgrounds that enhance the sense of distance.

By the end of this lesson, you’ll gain confidence in painting still water, handling reflections, and creating depth through layering and perspective. This is an excellent project for painters ready to develop more advanced skills while producing a calm and visually engaging pond landscape.