Morning Ritual

Morning Ritual

I do my best to have a morning ritual, mostly it involves coffee. It also involves taking a few minutes to plan my day and breathe before the whirlwind begins.

This morning sitting outside I saw the light and thought, well, why not just paint my morning ritual?

Morning Ritual
Watercolor on Paper
7 x 10″
$115
Purchase

As you see I am drawn to repeat the high contrast of light and shadow and the highest impact way, or my favorite way, to do this in watercolor is to think about where to leave the white of the paper, even where it is not white.

This painting I wanted to make the background a reddish brown to contrast with all of the cool blues and the green of the cup. Originally I had the surface with the book washed in with just a light blue (which I was not sure would work anyways) and it looked flat, there was just too much dead space with not enough happening.

I start getting nervous when I don’t know what to do with a watercolor, especially at this stage. If I messed it up then I would have to start another from the beginning.

So I just went ahead and added the stripes of the towel that were there and that really did the trick for me.

I am happy with today’s painting and how it came out. I did not have a full plan from the beginning and made decisions as I went. Which worked out this time. And other times too. The only way to figure it out is to try something based on what you think the painting needs and then go with that. I like the decisiveness that watercolor makes me take on.