Sunrise on the water

Sunrise

7 x 10 soft pastels on Art Spectrum

Miki Willa

The sky and the ocean are blue. The grass is green. Clouds are white. But is that it? One of the best things about becoming an artist is developing a clearer vision of things. Before I started painting skies, I really didn't notice all the different blues in the sky. They depend on location, time of year, time of day, weather conditions. Clouds have so many colors sometimes, they just scream to be painted.

The ocean is another source of great colors. I grew up near the ocean in Southern California. I got used to the green blue of that water. Then I moved to the Pacific Northwest. The ocean there was often a deep steel gray/blue. The ocean surrounding Hawaii can be deep purple to light turquoise. The reefs make an amazing difference and pattern. What I have begun to notice is the color on the water at different times of day. I have also begun to notice that the "white" in the foam of a wave is rarely white at all and never a solid color.

In today's painting, I tried to represent my new way of seeing. I wanted to show all the shades of the foam. The pinks in the water, from the very deep pink in the distance to the lighter peach in the foreground are reflections of the wonderful colors at sunrise. I am pleased that the painting in my head is the same one I managed to put on the paper.