Moving Right Along With Sunflowers Three

Drawing-Pencil and Watercolor Pencil Study.

The 16" x 20" canvas started.

Enlargement of watercolor pencil study.

The “Sunflowers Three” title comes from the fiddlers three in the Old King Cole song I used to sing in McHenry Choral Club. I loved that song and our bases chosen to sing the parts and dress as the fiddlers three. Nice memories. These three sunflower images remind me of those guys. Wonder if they’ll make an appearance. in the work? I haven’t gotten that far yet.

I documented the working drawings which have led me to putting the image on canvas for the first stage of the painting. The watercolor pencils were so fun to use on the study I decided to try them for my under drawing/painting. Below is the beginning of the project "Sunflowers Three" with the underpainted stems.

Next stage is to underpaint the flower petals.

Two at Exhibit

"Sunflower From Sue" and " Two Sunflowers From Sue's" were shown at The Next Picture Show Gallery in Dixon, Illinois during the month of April. This week the two pictures have moved to a display with Kishwaukee Valley Art League at Boarders Book Store in DeKalb, Illinois. There will be an opening reception May 9th from 5 pm to store closing.

Note the look for each one is slightly different. "Two Sunflowers..." was
done with a traditional umber under painting, while "Sunflower from Sue" was done using a warm toned red and yellow under painting. Similar, but different.

Now there are Two

Sunflowers have finally gotten into my artwork. The picture posted is the beginning stage of another sunflower composition. I love my digital camera for documenting the process or stages that the work goes through. It gives me ideas for other paintings to come. Actually, sunflowers have been in my mind for over 10 years. There is no accounting for when an idea with take form. This one is called “Two Sunflower’s from Sue's” The painting is 10” X 16”, but love to get it into a larger size. Time will tell.

Hidden in the Center

A new series is “Sunflower” I will explore the comment from one of my friends about,…”being hidden in the center.” I will mull over that thought. I often find hidden images in my work.

Sometimes the images lurk just out of focus and sometimes they are less overt. They almost always appear on their own. To emphasize them is now always a temptation. The image that pops is sometimes for me, sometimes from the past, or origin unknown. They come from the universe out there or maybe from the subconscious. The images may speak to me or there may be no message at all, just a reference to or from something else. (All images on site are copyright protected.)

Since my work is more a reflection of reality, well reality as Sherry sees it, I used to try to eradicate them. Now I am sure they bring another dimension to my work. As an artist. I no longer feel it to be unusual for these ghost images or shapes appear in my compositions. I have learned to live with it.