Sunflowers in Series for August

 

"What a surprising group of lovely suns!"

 

I haven't designed many paintings in a series, I think the last time I attempted it was back in 2010-2011 when I made five 5x7 inch oil paintings of swans. I remember each painting took me many days to complete and I became a bit burned out on the subject.

In an attempt to paint more with less anxious fussing around about the details, I made eight little 2.25 x 3 inch rectangles in my sketchbook and chose the glorious sunflowers in my garden as my subjects. 

I have to say, I even surprised myself with this result! I hope I can capture the same energetic brush work when I try to paint them in a larger size. Now I have a new problem, which design do I want to spend the time and effort to paint larger?

Here is a closer look at my favorites:

"Bouquet of Suns"

 

I really like how this group relates to each other, I planted the original seeds two years ago, one seed packet was burgundy brown and the other pale yellow. These volunteer "grandchildren" plants are interesting, some of them have deep red brown centers with gold edges and others are pure yellow with green centers.
 

"The King and Bee"

 

The bees and butterflies have been having a grand time sipping and zipping around the garden, this was my tallest and largest sunflower and that white bit is a quick shorthand for a bee.

"Blondie and Friend"

 

I was calling the sunflowers that were all yellow with green centers the "Blondies," I wanted to be certain to get a portrait of them.

"Sunburst Afternoon"

I tried several times of day to get the perfect photo of this sunflower, the afternoon photo turned out to be one of my favorites.

"Solo Sun"

 

Since the sunflowers this year are all volunteers from seeds from the year before, some of them were scattered by the birds and it was surprising where they popped up, like this solo beauty standing by itself.

"Warm-Hearted"

 My attempt to capture some of that wonderful warm sun glow through those gold and red brown petals.

Which one of these charming sunflowers would you pick?

I'm reminded of that very expressive German phrase "Die Qual der Wahl" which means the "the torture of choice." That sounds a bit dramatic, but it's a great phrase to try to convey that predicament of having too many good choices.

Happy Creating!

>^-^<

Tina