This is a simple study that I painted on a panel. I often use small panels to try out techniques or colors. I like to work on small canvasses. I think that a common mistake for many students is to paint over life size without a good reason.
The darks in this painting are applied very thinly.
Every year (except this one) I have bought tulips and planted them in large pots so I could have painting material in the spring. This past October was so warm and dry that I knew it would be hard to grow tulips because they require at least 6 weeks of cold weather to bloom. So I dug out my trusty artificial tulips and found a few photographs of tulips to paint this picture.
Here’s a technique tip: You can remove acrylic varnish with alcohol but you can make corrections on top of Liquitex gloss or matt medium varnish. Remember to reseal the entire painting with varnish when you have finished.
All of the sunflower paintings in this series were done with acrylics.I think that the most important thing to remember when starting a painting is the location of the light source. Where is the light coming from? Most of the time I like for the light to come from the left side. The second question I always ask myself is “Where is the focal point?” It is better to have only one focal point, and to emphasize one plane: The foreground, or the middle, or the background.
Last week’s post was a sunflower painting. Today I am using the same models but rearranging them. Next week you will see another version of sunflowers. I like to do a series of paintings on the same theme.
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