"S" is for Sunrise - A to Z Challenge

"Sunrise" ©Mary Montague Sikes

Today's painting is a change of page for Farrah Ferand, the heroine of Evening of the Dragonfly. Sunrise represents new beginnings for her. The dark of night is gone, and anything is possible with a new day. Farrah has brought lots of baggage with her for her new life in Virginia. As she paints her one-person exhibition work, she is creating the opportunity for new beginnings.

"Sunrise" is acrylic on a 20" x 16" stretched canvas. I have found that traveling between watercolor and acrylics for my mediums is more difficult than I expected. The two painting processes are quite different for me. I love the feel and the smell of my thick, juicy acrylic Golden fluid acrylics. I also enjoy the development of compositions as I spray the beautiful and intense colors of the Robert Doak watercolors. It's easier for me to work in one style for a period of time. Two years ago, I painted an animal a day, all working with acrylics except for one pastel painting on paper that I didn't like as well and later recreated in acrylic on canvas. That was an easier process.

For those of you who have just joined this blog journey:
Evening of the Dragonfly is a novel set in the 1980s, a time less complicated than today. Farrah Ferand has a high school art teaching job in a small Virginia town. She meets Dirk Lawrence, a businessman from the city, who takes an interest in her and in her painting and is helping her build a studio over the garage in her rented home. Farrah is thrilled to have the studio because she has a one-person art exhibition scheduled. As she works on new paintings, Farrah realizes things about herself, her relationships, and the tragic loss of her mother. We encounter some of her realizations as new paintings and parts of painting are unveiled each day during the A to Z Challenge. My book is available in trade paperback and as an e-book.