SUNFLOWER BLOSSOM and SUNFLOWER SERIES

SUNFLOWER BLOSSOM

15" x 15" acrylic on standard canvas

Okay - I didn't make my Friday deadline for posting this flower - but I was really, really close! This is the final sunflower in this series for a while as I have no more 15" x 15" canvasses! (Oh! oh! I just received a sale flyer from my favorite art store and canvas is ON SALE!!!! Wahoo!!! Maybe I'll be doing some more of these sooner than I thought!!!!) Hmmm, I may need to try other flowers as I need to wait until big sunflowers are in season again to get some different reference photos and ideas!

Here you can see the 3 paintings side by side. They look gorgeous all together!

If you are interested in purchasing any of these paintings, please contact me at jogiesbrecht@gmail.com They are $400 each.

Next stages of sunflower painting

When you are painting on larger sized canvasses, it takes a lot of paint, and sometimes a lot of patience. I do not paint in the style of some acrylic painters where the paint is thick and covers the canvas in one stroke of the brush. Instead, I use many, many layers of glazing of the paint to achieve the transparent look and "glow" of my paintings.

I consider this painting to still be in the UGLY stage, although it is progressing through LESS UGLY to the I'M GETTING HAPPIER stage. I'm going to leave the petals for now and focus on the leaves, so the next time you see this painting, it will look much better - like a sick patient who is on his way to health, but you can tell he isn't up to his usual self yet.

New Acrylic Sunflower Painting - on the easel

An acrylic painting in progress - 15" x 15" sunflower

This is the UGLY stage... when the first streaky layers show the underpainting, and background is just barely there to show the outline of petals. I don't think I've ever shown an acrylic in this early stage online before. It's because at this point, I am never sure if I can get the painting to somewhere close to what is in my mind. And of course, failure is not an option! (At least that's what I tell myself!)

I have worked more on the upper petals of the sunflower than the rest of the painting, so I can begin to see the possibilities coming to life. But this is the UGLY stage. And I really dislike this stage. It's like a baby being born with dry and wrinkled skin... in a few days the dryness is gone, and the beautiful baby skin appears. In a few days, I am hoping the beauty of these petals will appear on this canvas, and the ugly will be gone. Meanwhile, I'm thinking ahead to see what is not yet there, and to overlook what is there!

SUNFLOWER BLOSSOM

Bed-Head Blossom

15" x 15" original acrylic on standard canvas

Getting a true representation of canvas paintings can be very tricky. It bothers me that the background in this picture looks washed out compared with the actual painting - but I don't have the time to try to get a better picture, and it is too large for my scanner, so this will have to do!

I was going to call this painting "Sunflower Blossom", but after a visit on my blog from Dean Grey, I have changed its name. Dean said he liked the "bed-head look" of this flower, and I liked that description so much I have changed the name of the painting! It is now "Bed-Head Blossom". Thanks, Dean! (If you haven't checked out Dean's work, he has 2 blogs... you really should visit him here and here.)

This is the second in a series of paintings of Sunflowers. You can see the first one here. I am going to do another 15" x 15" piece, and then a few in other sizes. By the time I finish with this series, I may have grown enough new sunflowers that I can get more reference photos and start all over again! (insert insane delusional laughter here)

I also picked up some other flowers recently that I will be painting soon - some in acrylic, some in oils.

For those of you who have asked - yes, I will be returning to painting in watercolors. I may do some smaller pieces over the next few weeks. Right now though, I am trying to get as many of these acrylics completed as I can before spring. I am also planning on a few oils, and then I will go back to my work on watercolor paintings which have a poured background. Baby Giraffe, African Beast and African Elephant all have that technique for their backgrounds, and I have several more planned. These will be larger watercolors, and will take quite a bit of time to complete.

In the meantime, I am hoping for more beautiful weather where I can get out and walk in relatively "warm" temperatures. I keep thinking that spring is not all that far away, calendar-wise. But I am not wishing my days away... each ordinary day is truly a gift, even if it is cold.

Working on this...

Sunflower on the easel

Another work-in-progress. I am LOVING the action and flow of this beautiful sunflower! I paid quite a bit for this stem, ($4.00!!!) and it never really opened up, which was a disappointment. But, I was able to get this angle of the flower head, which I am quite pleased with!

This canvas is 15" x 15", and the flower is being painted in acrylic. I pre-toned the canvas with my all-time favorite background color for my sunflower paintings - Quinacridone Burnt Orange. I am also using a new color in this painting- Transparent Red Oxide from KROMA, a company in Granville Island, Vancouver which makes their own paints. The texture of their acrylics is buttery and the colors are so vibrant! Their paints contain no fillers or extenders, and they are excellent as far as lightfastness goes. I visited Kroma about 3 years ago, and appreciated how they are a small company with excellent service and customer care!

I am hoping to finish this sunflower over the next few days. I will post the finished painting for you to see.