Take time to watch the sunrise

Of all the sights that influence us in a day, perhaps the most striking is that moment when one awakes and peers tenuously out the window to greet the day.  It is that special time that sets your mood.  It is the Gray Dawning to Blue that gives you that first insight into how your day will proceed.  Seeing that sunrise will put your day in perspective. 

I love seeing the gray turn to a soft blue and then often a boisterous sunrise.  It strikes me that the sunrise moves so swiftly: Much more quickly, I note, than sunsets which seem to linger.  I feel the beauty of those first soft morning color changes and then the vibrancy that comes on almost at once.  And before you can go to share it with someone, it has already changed and been tucked away only in your mind to be remembered. 

I have recently tried to capture the color of sunrises with watercolor at the suggestion of Colorado artist Debby McAlister.  It is in this experiment that I have found what she predicted.  When you are painting and trying to get the colors just right, you are scrambling just to get it on paper.  However, when you look back it is difficult to believe some of the skies that I have painted.  The colors are unbelievable when I look back over my body of work.  Yes sunrises are surprises and best just to be enjoyed in the moment.  

Make a mental note to always get a first look as dawn awakens as you may miss this grand display if you are tardy.