First Light on the Water

I painted this one from memory of a trip to South Carolina, out in the Low Country. I wasn’t trying to copy anything exactly—more like capturing the feeling of those wide, quiet marshes. The winding water came first, because that’s what stuck with me from being there, how it moves so slowly and reflects the sky without trying too hard. The greens in the foreground are really just impressions of all that marsh grass, not meant to be perfect. I kept the sky soft on purpose, with those peachy tones near the horizon fading into cooler blues, the way the light projects into the sky at the beginning of sunrise. It's a simple scene, but it brings me right back to that trip every time I look at it.