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After a 6 month hiatus I started back to watercolour painting with the little 5×7 tulip painting that I finished earlier this week. I just had to see if I actually remembered how to paint! Thankfully, though I felt a bit rusty, I realized that I didn’t totally forget how and maybe its kind of like riding a bike. 🙂
So what did I decide to do as soon as I completed the itty bitty 5×7 painting …I decided to leap into a 33x48cm (13x19in) painting of a sunflower. It is coming along. I am working to build up my concentration levels again. What I am noticing after such a long break is that I have to “think” a lot more, which is slowing down my painting. When I paint every day for hours, I flow better. I stop having to “think” about how to mix the colours, or how to capture the nuances of the sunlight and shadows on the petals. Also when I paint a lot I find that I can paint for 4, 5 or 6 hours without much of a break and I am not tired. I have to say I am really looking forward to getting back to that kind of rhythm again! Right now I seem to last 2 hours, tonight I did 2.5 hours but I am really tired at the end of the session…slowly it will get better. So here is where I am with the sunflower. If you are on Facebook you have been seeing daily updates as I do bit by bit.
Sorry about the quality of the photos. I was snapping them quickly just to see how things were going.
Value is the biggest challenge when working with yellow! See yellow looks like it is a lighter value than other colours but often if you take a photo of the colours side-by-side and grey tone it then you can see that the yellow is close to the same value. It is an optical illusion that yellow is lighter. It makes working with yellow completely fun! This painting is larger which means the centre is large enough to really have fun with. I can’t wait to get going. Some day I would love to do a 22×30 inch sunflower…but my patience level isn’t there yet! 😉
The days are getting lighter as we head into the summer solstice…but in true Yellowknife fashion the first week of June has been rather chilly! The full moon will be here soon and hopefully some warmer weather will follow. I don’t do grey gloomy weather very well. I am a sunshine girl. Thankfully I am painting a flower that represents sunshine…glad I am painting the sunflower!
Have a wonderful weekend. I can’t wait to show you the final piece on Monday. See you then!
Dancing Raven Studio 
So glad you are having fun back at your painting. It is looking great! I love sunflowers & you seem to be able to capture them in your painting really well. I will keep my fingers crossed for you in hopes of some sunnier warmer weather. Our spring was very late here in Muskoka, but we should be ready for summer by the end of June. We are at least 3 weeks behind. My perennial gardens are usually ready to burst into bloom by now, but it will be a couple weeks still I think. We still have some trilliums & violets in bloom in the bush & they are typically long gone by now. Have a great day!
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Thanks Candee. The weather is finally getting nicer as of Sunday evening! Actually we are not far behind. We generally don’t plant anything until the 10th of June because it can go below freezing until then. So it looks like we are right on track…
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Looking good Shawna. Must be hard to be inside all the time when you daylight is upon you. Our June has been very nice so far, bit of rain but when I remember the freezing rain that week many years I’m happy with this. Good to see you painting again!!
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Well it hasn’t been so nice. This week may be way more difficult with the warmer weather on its way. But I have so much work to do so I just have to stay focused.
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I was impressed to hear how long you could paint for before getting tired when in your former painting rhythm. Hopefully it won’t take long for your stamina to build back up. Your sunflower is shaping up nicely! I hope you get some warm weather soon!
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I loved that I could paint for that long…I miss it. I am way more productive when I get more hours in painting. It will come back in the next month or so…I hope!
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