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!
2 comments:
KAREN, THANKS FOR THE SUNFLOWER.
SUNFLOWERS 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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