Mornings

I love mornings!  They are the time of day when everything is new and fresh, and each day is a gift.  Add to that I fall asleep at 9, and you can tell I am a morning person for sure.  Usually I spend my mornings reading the news – but that is becoming less interesting as I change my usual morning habits to spending anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour sketching or doing some form of watercolor, structured, unstructured, from an object, a picture, or my imagination.  Hopeful that I don’t dump my paint brush into my morning coffee (believe me, it has happened more than once!), here are some pieces from the past few weeks.

Doing these paintings and drawings every day is resulting in some good experiences and increased confidence in what I can do.  There are times everything sucks – no perspective, no contrast, whatever – and then there are times when it comes together.  And times when that proverbial “ah ha!” moment hits, and what has been intellectually clear is now clear in the mind-muscle-eye coordination when rendering paint.  Occasionally I use line, other times I don’t and just paint, thinking ahead to figure out what goes where.  Stepping back to critique things is also a worthwhile endeavor – fresh eyes after a few days.

In a couple of weeks – no school!  I’ll be free until I pick up 3 weeks of ESL at the end of July.  Until then, painting, continued cleaning up and unpacking after the flood, and a trip or two here or there.  Summer awaits!

Path

This morning I thought I would do another “one morning wonder” (like, I wonder why I did it, why!  it looks wonderful!), but as I laid down the first washes I realized that I needed to paint the foliage with negative painting.  Bingo!  The lesson of the other day came to the forefront of my brain.  Let’s see how it progresses.  Here is the first scan.

Orange Lilies

After “getting” negative space yesterday, I decided to make a complicated drawing and “work” at negative space.  I have orange lilies blooming in pots on the patio every year, and they are brilliantly orange with piles of leaves in all directions.  What better source of light and dark, overlaps, medium shades?  And in the afternoon sun.  So, here you go.