Sunflowers

It finally felt like vacation, with a short to do list and lots more time today. I got to make a start on painting sunflowers, the ones I bought on Christmas Eve with all the holiday flowers and greenery. I had gotten some sunflowers a few weeks ago, because sometimes you have to get what is available. But I did not have any time to paint them. So today I got to right that :)

I will not be making the painting's background brick colored, but the light was best on them here and there was a good place to paint them from life, with room for my easel and paint supplies in the right places for this. I sketched a rough sketch composition in willow charcoal and applied fixative.

Then I prepared a color chart, just so I could get them right and match to what I saw. I made up my paint table pretty neatly too, and everything was ready (see above).

Here is a simple underpainting, will get lots more work, but has a good start going now. I have made some corrections to the unopened flower, which got painted up out of proportions and I need to do that over again tomorrow. And then start adding definition to the leaves and shapes in the greenery parts.

I am not yet decided whether to use oils over this. But it is quite possible, I am over 50 % inclined to move in that favor. I think the greens especially will look really nice in oils.

More soon !