The sunflower above was created in pastels.
Sunflowers are my favorite flower and I plant them every year in our yard. Not only are they fun to grow, they are a joy to look at and a good way to feed the birds. After the sunflowers have bloomed, the seeds can be harvested to feed the birds during the winter. I like to let a few sunflowers go to seed in my garden to attract the birds---it is nature's own bird feeder. The remainder of my sunflowers I dry, place in a bag, shake the seeds out, and keep for winter feeding.
Sunflowers are easy to grow and easy to paint. I have painted several different sunflower pictures and have done sunflower paintings in different media: watercolor, pastels, and acrylics.
Watercolor tip for painting sunflowers
In the watercolor below, I masked off the sunflower blooms, leaves, and stem to paint the background. This allowed me to freely paint the sky and background using a wet on wet technique to touch in yellows and browns to indicate a field of sunflowers with only one large sunflower in focus.
Tip for Use of Pastels
I created the sunflower first and then put in the background. This was an easy way to help me not disturb the background when putting in the sunflower.
Create a sunflower painting to keep you smiling long past summer!
KAREN, THANKS FOR THE SUNFLOWER.
ReplyDeleteSUNFLOWERS GROW WELL UP IN THE MOUNTAINS TOO.
WHEN LIVING UP THERE FED CHICKADEES THAT WOULD COME AND TAKE A SMALL SUNFLOWER SEED FROM MY HAND.
THEY CAME IN SINGLE FILE, WAITING THEIR TURN, FLY A SHORT DISTANCE AND BACK FOR ANOTHER SEED.
ALSO HAD SEVERAL HUMMING BIRD FEEDERS BECAUSE THE BOLD BIRDS FIGHT OFF THE MORE TIMID BIRDS.
I WAS NOT ABLE TO STAY UP IN THE MOUNTAINS, LOTS OF SNOW IN WINTER, THEN MUDDY CONDITIONS WHEN SPRING THAW CAME.
A WONDERFUL PLACE TO LIVE, SO MUCH WILDLIFE AND VIEWS OF MANY MILES OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN PEAKS.
I COULD SEE WESTCLIFFE COLORADO 15 MILES WHICH WAS A LOWER ELEVATION.
MY MOUNTAIN HOME WAS HALF WAY BETWEEN CANON CITY AND WESTCLIFFE COLORADO.
CHECK WESTCLIFFE COLORADO ON KEYWORD OF YOUR COMPUTER. sam
I came over from Dad's tomato blog. I have been looking at your paintings. They are very pretty. Helen
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