Sunflowers

This week at AVA it was our last chance to 'do our own thing' . As the neighbour has been growing sunflowers, it seemed like a good idea to have another go at these lovely flower heads.

A simple, fast wash was my starting point, using Quinachridone Rust, Indian Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Apatite Green Genuine and Indigo on a sheet of quite wet Fabriano Artistico Extra White 300g Rough paper. I has to be a bit careful as the paper buckled a little even though it is a glued pad, and the paint tended to gather in the hollows. I used a tissue to mop up any extra paint.

I started with the centre adding colours as each wash dried and tried to create an interesting effect with spots of various colours.

I then tackled the petals, keeping them as fresh and light as possible on the RH side in the sunlight, and using more oranges and browns on the LH side in the shadow area.

The original wash was intended to give me space for some greenery on the LH side, but when I tried to paint over the original wash, it all looked very muddy. So I cropped off all the excess background on the left, and introduced some really dark paint behind the petals. I then finished the whole painting with a bit of splatter in white, yellow,gold and indigo.