They Meet at the Waterline

They Meet at the Waterline

Produce ONE image, 2:3 portrait: a thickly painted scene reflected in a surface. Follow every line. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.

First — do you have the fields?

If any field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put all the questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then draw. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for, and it will look exactly as considered as the ones they did give you.

Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.

The examples are only examples. If someone answers a question, use their answer; never fall back to the example because you prefer it.

If the fields are already filled in, ignore this and carry on.

Fields — replace these five lines only

• The scene, and what is in it: {a place, and three or four things}
• The subject, and how far above the surface they stand: {a person, and where their feet are}
• The surface, and where the line sits: {a reflective surface, and a height on the sheet}
• The title, and where it goes: {a title, and which half}
• The palette: {a cool range, and a warm range}

The joining law

A reflection is attached to the thing it reflects. That is the whole difference between a reflection and a copy.

There is one surface line, horizontal, at the height the fields give. Above it is the scene; below it is what the surface returns.

Every object touches its own reflection at that line. Where an object meets the surface — a figure's boots, a post entering the water, the hull of a boat — the reflection begins at exactly that point, with no gap.

Objects above the surface are offset by their height. A ferry standing off, well above the waterline, has its reflection equally far below it. The distance from object to line equals the distance from line to reflection, for everything in the picture.

A reference run of this style flipped its scene and stacked it: the figure stood in the lower third and the inverted figure hung in the upper third, with the whole middle of the sheet — and the title — between them. Nothing touched anything. It was two copies of a picture, one upside down.

Follow the subject down to the line. If the reflection is not attached at their feet, this rule has not been applied.

The reflection is not a copy

The lower half is the same scene returned by a surface, and it shows it:

• Darker and lower in contrast than the original, throughout.
• Vertically compressed — a little shorter than the thing it reflects.
• Broken by the surface: horizontal ripple bands run across it, displacing it slightly and increasing toward the bottom of the sheet.
• Detail is lost. Fine things — rigging, grass blades, faces — dissolve into shapes.
• The sun's reflection is a long vertical glitter path, not a disc.

It is never a clean flipped duplicate.

The scene

• Painted thickly: visible brush loading, ridged strokes, canvas tooth showing through in places.
• Warm light source low and behind, cool everything else, so the poster reads as two temperatures meeting at the line.
• The subject small, seen from behind, in silhouette against the light.
• Rough grasses or reeds may frame the outer edges of both halves.

Type

• The title in one half only, as the fields say — large, in a broad brushed or painted face, sitting in the sky or the water but never crossing the surface line.
• A short subtitle beside or below it.
• Nothing else. No credit block, no billing text, no date, no laurels, no corner marks. If the fields did not give you a line, the corner stays empty painted surface.
• Only what the fields supply — no invented festivals, laurels, studios or ratings.

Never

• ✕ a reflection detached from the thing it reflects
• ✕ a gap between a subject's feet and their reflection
• ✕ objects and reflections offset by unequal distances
• ✕ a reflection as bright, sharp or detailed as the original
• ✕ a perfectly flipped duplicate with no ripple or compression
• ✕ type crossing the surface line
• ✕ a sun reflected as a disc rather than a glitter path
• ✕ invented laurels, festival names, credits, dates or corner marks
• ✕ any text in a corner that the fields did not supply
• ✕ more than one surface line

The result

A picture with a real surface in it: one line across the sheet, everything standing on it joined to its own returning image, and a lower half that is plainly water rather than a second copy of the sky.