Painting Sunflowers: Guide to Create A Beautiful Variety of Paintings
“I want to be a sunflower. Even on the darkest day I want to stand tall and find the sunlight” - unknown
Now I understand, the answer is: endless! I, however, have not painted sunflowers until only a few years ago. At all. In Siberia, where my family lived for the 30 years of my life, we simply did not grow sunflowers. In the faraway Ukraine and Belarus (former Soviet Republics) they do however. Ultimately, we, artists, paint what we experience, see and feel. At that artistic period of my life the beloved subject matter was - glorious Siberian winter!
Gigantic Sunflowers outside the front door of our Kingdom
Moving to the USA (Holland, Michigan) motivated me to study new subject matters, like tulips (another flower that I did not know personally). My dear husband ordered and planted seeds of the sunflower that attracted his attention- “Gigantic Russian”! Well, way to go, then!
As soon as I personally met them, those glorious creatures, and spent lots of time together in our pollinators garden, then it became a beautiful artistic journey of exploring this flower, its personality and story!
Would you like to join me!? Then, let’s do it!
Choose smaller painting surface (canvas, canvas boards).
I suggest starting with smaller canvas sizes then gently going a bit larger. As large canvas might bring some fear, the choice of smaller sizes will help you to gain more confidence and skills!
2. Plan to focus only on one subject matter.
Devoting several days or even entire week to painting only one subject matter will allow you to study many variations of brush strokes movement, positioning, angles, color combinations and so on. You will notice that by the painting, let’s say, number five, you will gain fabulous confidence, and thus your strokes will be much looser. This means the energy of the flower and its surroundings will become obvious to the viewer! And that is a huge achievement!
3. Set up a challenge for yourself
How many images could you make?
It is not about the number of paintings- it is more about learning about so may varieties in approaching a specific subject matter.
4. Challange yourself with questions:
~ What colors can I introduce to a seemingly green background?
~ What does a gentle variation of blue do to a painting?
~ How about minimizing background colors to really focus on the sunflower bloom?
5. Do not look at other artists’ sunflower paintings on the day of painting
Allow YOUR vision to totally dominate with a complete trust!
6. Try a variety of tools.
Try different brushes and palette- all of them have different affect! Real fun indeed!
7. Before each painting session observe and study your subject matter at different times of the day.
As I mentioned we grow sunflowers in many spots of our ten acres property and I can enjoy them from every window of our house, including my studio. However, visiting nearby sunflower field at early sunrise time was important to me to feel different from our flowers’ energy of the place and for observing the flowers in the shade verses sun. How does this affect the colors and the perspective?
Take a sunflower painting journey with me
Using pallet knife to create texture
Follow my steps in creating sunflower masterpieces in YOUR style
Evolution of my style and exploration of style with each collection.
NEW 2024 Collection
2023 Collection
2022 Collection
2021 Collection
All Available Sunflower Paintings will be in the Florals Album, every year I nearly sell out so if it’s available don’t wait!!
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