The Joy of Practicing

Corner of Morton and San Jose
7" x 10" watercolor
on Arches 100% hot press paper

Lately I’ve hit an inspirational doldrum as a painter. Travels, such as my recent trip to Colorado, tend to tickle the Muse; routine can soften her voice, even though I live in a place surrounded by beauty and great weather. 

So this week I took two mornings to drive around our island in search not of subject matter that reaches out and touches me, like travel does, but that at least interests me in terms of light/dark, textural, or color contrasts.

For this painting it was the light/dark contrast of the sun-soaked houses (including that bright white trim of the charcoal-colored house on the right) with the darker trees and the shade they threw on the sides and foreground.

The yellow right-turn sign on the bottom left was the icing on the cake. I left it out of the value study below but decided to keep it in the top painting.

This is not a painting I’ll frame, but painting both the value study below and the full-color painting above did provide me with a couple of hours of transcendent joy as I practiced with lights and darks. And it might make a fun card folded in half to some friend who appreciates my quirky paintings.