This puts the surface on the wetness

[shootingstar]

When dry, use a damp brush to lift some scuffs of wind off the surface - a broad one nearby, a narrow band further away, and a fine one in the far distance. This puts the surface on the wetness, giving it perspective. It is a useful technique for painting convincing water, and can even make water look wet when used as a single technique.

(Source: The Landscape Painter's Essentiail Handbook by Joe Francis Dowden)

It's about watercolour painting. Here a lake is painted and the author explains what to do. I don't understand the underlined sentence. I would have expected this the other way round: "This puts the wetness on the surface". What is meant by the author's phrasing? Are there other phrasings or idioms where "put ....on" is used having this meaning?

 

[jutfrank]

This is hard to understand without seeing the context and the picture. Can you upload the whole page?

There's something being referred to as 'the wetness', which I'd guess is a visual effect that has been mentioned somewhere before. The broad and narrow brush strokes described in this passage create a way of giving this existing visual effect of wetness not only the impression that the lake has a surface, but also of creating perspective.

Please show us the context.