Sunflower Study

I have always enjoyed sunflowers.   They have so much character.

Fresh, lively, tall and strong, sunflowers are full of energy rich seeds for birds and other wildlife.  And I love the artsy, withered petals that remain as the seed heads mature.  Their twisted shapes are intriguing, and full of subtle colors--maroon, violet, gold, burnt sienna, yellow ochra, thin veils of purple, and deeper shades of purple in the shadows.  After enjoying a stroll through a sunflower field at Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, a favorite natural area near my east Tennessee home, I have a collection of images of sunflowers of all sizes, shapes and maturity levels, giving me plenty of inspiration and reference for painting.

Flowers are perfect subjects for practice and for playing around with different ways to interpret color and light in watercolor.  Above you see that I taped the paper to a backboard and set it on a table easel.  I also printed both a color and a black and white image of the subject.  The black and white image often allows you to see the values more clearly and encourages the use of your imagination in defining areas of light.  

To create the background, I wet the paper with brush strokes of clear water, and brushed on a wash of Winsor Newton New gamboge, Arylide yellow and Cerulean blue.  As I worked, I allowed these colors to blend naturally as they moved on the paper.  After this initial wash dried completely, I added color to the sunflower,working around the petals and the leaves, letting colors blend wet in wet.

I added color to the butterfly early in the painting so I could see how it looked with the background and all that rich sunflower yellow.  When I saw the butterfly on the sunflower in the field, I thought its pale under wings would not show up well enough to create a nice center of interest in a painting.  But, I was pleasantly surprised as the butterfly began to take shape in this study.  

Above you see I have lightly scrubbed the outer edge of the butterfly's wing to allow it to blend more with the background.  I have also lightened the area along the top of the butterfly's wing and the tip to give the impression of light.

What we generally refer to as the bloom on a sunflower is really a large inflorescence or sunflower head that contains 1,000 to 2,000 individual flowers joined together at a receptacle base.

Links and resources:

Posts with paintings of butterflies and flowers, the most recent post will be first.

Forever A Student

I think I will forever be a student.  I love to learn, explore, venture past the edge of what I know, into the fresh and new.  It's exhilerating.  It expands my world and brings me joy and laughter.

This is how I feel about watercolor, creating gourd art, about watching and learning about birds and other favorite nature subjects, and about life. Creativity comes from a deep place and it can be tapped by many different activities. Eventually, they all come together in a compelling desire to create. I want to have plenty of choices at my finger tips when I make art and write, choices available from my mental library, so I can snatch anyone of them and use them at the moment I feel inspired.

This is what makes practice so valuable. Practice is play time, an unfettered chance to explore, exercise curiosity, try something new without knowing how it will turn out. The benefits? Using current skills and pushing beyond them, feeling your way through a decision, tapping your senses for help, using your intuitive abilities, and opening up to greet whatever you learn--all of these get exercised when you try something new! This is great for the soul, great for building courage, and great for having fun! When the results are disappointing, you gain a sense of what to do differently (the value of mistakes), and when something turns out beautifully, it's exhilarating. You expand your wings and your world enlarges.

Below, you see the point at which I was thinking this is a mess! When I started adding shape and shading to the shell, I ran into new challenges. But I kept going and used more contrast. Scroll to the top again to see the finished study.

I initially worked without sketching, a big challenge for me. I love to draw. But it is also clear to me that when I sketch, I naturally limit myself by trying to "obey" the lines. It's like coloring inside the lines as a child and loosing your expressive freedom. Watercolor doesn't like to behave that way. It likes to move. Learning about that movement and keeping it in mind as you go is a great way to get to know the medium. It's also a great way to learn more about yourself. How do you work your way through obstacles?

"Painting the light" that is reflected on and around a subject is a great exercise to challenge your ability to see light and to express it on paper. As I was painting this shell I thought of many other ways I could approach the subject and the light.

Links and Resources:

Visit my review of Colour and Light on this blog.