Morning Sun by William Geissler (1896-1963) captures a bright sun shining over a countryside landscape. The majority of the colour palette for this piece is yellow, brown and black in muted tones. Geissler loosely captures some of the vegetation with varying detail of curving watercolour strokes overlaid with bright yellow or dark black in thin strokes of pencil. The sun's rays are captured with a mix of watecolour in a darker tone providing slight depth and then light strokes of pencil forming the arcs of the rays, creating an exaggerated illumination to the entire piece. Where the white gate is, Geissler used the technique of leaving an empty space and then going back with light washes of grey watercolour to create its shape through shadows. 

Farmland is a common subject throughout Geissler's work, reflecting the skecthing expeditions him and other prominent artists of the time would take. Much of Geissler's later work reflects this style of capturing the details of a work with watercolour and then coloured pencil in lines on top to capture exact shape and exaggerate sharpness in the piece. These bold designs are likely residual inspiration from his time learning under the cubist artist André Lhote in Paris. 

William Geissler, 1896-1963

Born in Edinburgh, Geissler attended evening classes at Edinburgh College of Art while employed as an apprentice draughtsman by the publishers Nelson. After army service in the First World War he enrolled on a full-time course at the college. He was a founder member of the '22 Group, an exhibiting society formed by a group of artists who had left the college in 1922, including William Gillies, William MacTaggart and William Crozier. Awarded a travelling scholarship, Geissler went with Gillies and Crozier to Paris, where the studied with André Lhote. After briefly teaching at Edinburgh College of Art and Perth Academy, he joined Moray House College of Education in Edinburgh in 1935. Geissler painted mainly landscapes, often with Gillies and John Maxwell.