Sunrise

Sunrise
Watercolour on Paper
12cm x 16.5cm (4.75" x 6.5")

Sunrise is the seventh topic in the Skies and Weather chapter of Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor by Claudia Nice.

Claudia observes 

Traditionally the sunrise has been thought of as pastel and delicate. In truth the sunrise can rival the sunset in colouration.

This matches my experiences – I’ve seen some spectacular sunrises – but not very many - I am usually asleep. I should make more effort to get up to draw and paint in the early morning. Sunrise is an easier time to draw and paint than sunset because at sunset you are racing to finish before it gets dark - at sunrise you can always finish off from memory as the sky gets lighter.

This is another sky based on a Javid Tabatabaei demonstration - How to paint sky in watercolor painting. This one was a learning experience, this picture is my twelfth attempt at the sky and there is still room for improvement. It is critical to have the right relative intensity of yellow and blue (and the right pigments), so you don’t end up with green. Then there is the timing of the different layers – waiting until the sky has just the right amount of wetness before adding the clouds. Javid’s clouds look much more natural than mine – which is something for me to work on.