Watercolour 11 X 8 1/2 inches on arches 140 # paper Windsor Newton pigments.

Jim and Deb.. thank you both , I appreciate your comments very much .

Deb .. the title is tongue in cheek from the saying , " life can be a bowl of cherries or it can be 'the pits'.
The painting started out as a bowl of cherries but when still in the drawing stage with only the bowl and two of the three cherries outside of it drawn things in life prevented me from finishing the drawing right away and soon all the cherries were eaten and just the pits left. The bowl of pits appealed to my sense of humour so I just drew what was left 

Hi Pearl

Wonderful. I've tried a painting or two like this, looking down on a bowl. it is so difficult, isn't it, to avoid going over that line and ruining the shape! Any special tips would be welcomed.

Thank you Kim , valle, and Clarity for looking and for your nice comments which are much appreciated .

Clarity , special tips ?,   In this particular painting I just started with the dark wash and very ,very carefully painted around the bowl .And luckily it turned out OK. But there are a few things I sometimes do and that is

# 1.. if using a very dark wash first outline the outer rim with India ink or an archival ink  "micron" pen  # 5 or 8

# 2.. leave any light coloured bowl painting til last and  carefully mask the inner rim and paint the background first.
In this method tho one must be careful when later painting the bowl not to disturb the heavy pigmented BG.

Pearl