Have you ever tried to paint a mass of foliage and make since of it? Well, its hard! I picked up this pot of sunflowers while at the grocery store today and it only cost $2.50. There are many posts on my blog of painting sunflowers but this is the first one in gouache. Although the mass of foliage I was trying to make since of really made this painting hard.
I realized that the best way to paint an abstract area of random values colors and shapes is to observe closely and try and put down each random shape as best as possible. This sure is a daunting task, you wouldn’t think that an area of purely haphazard shapes would take much focus, but if you want it to look authentic, it does. Unfortunately I don’t think I’m up for the task just yet, maybe if I didn’t have to split my time between painting and working and if I had the longevity to spend more than 2.5 hours a night painting sunflowers.
I’m not sure if I’m going to finish this painting, I may have to start a new one after simplifying the composition, I just don’t have the ability to paint for long currently.
Well I thought I would have a more recent example of me painting sunflowers but the last time I painted one was almost a year ago! Wow where does the time go?
I thought that I would fine tons of examples of artists painting sunflowers online but after searching on google a bit I didn’t find much. But here is a very nice set of sunflowers from reneelammers.com. I like how she used an ink pin on the works, it reminds me of how James Gurney uses water soluble color pencils on his works for fine detail. I may have to use their ideas in the future.
