Happy 2015

Boxing day saw me driving over to Hull, I just love going over the Humber Bridge.   Of course I bagged some goodies, including this 30cm x 100cm box canvas.  I've never worked on a such a long thin surface though and was not sure what I was going to do with it.   The Popart sunflower idea presented itself before I had left the shop.

Once home I looked on line a lots of images of sunflowers, taking inspiration from these the flower was drawn onto the canvas.    Outline in place I started with Spectrum Noir AquaTints, mistake.   Even when dry between different colour applications the colours would bleed and blend.  Not so terrible with the stem but did not think the petals would look so great with green blurred outlines.   Good thing I have such a great range of good quality acrylic paints.

Once the basic background and stem were laid down a small tube of no nails was used to outline part of the flower head.   When that had gone off the basic yellow and orange/yellow mix filled the image.  Next Bronze colour acrylic filled the centre, if you look at the head of a sunflower you will see a patten in the seeds which I tried to emulate with the paint.   I used to have a great stencil with graduated circles it had to be cut down so that it could be used in the centre here, black felt pen applied through the holes for the seed head.    A line of Emerald coloured acrylic paint runs up the stem, with a thinner line of copper texture paint beside it.   Orca yellow paint applied in the same way outlines petals not marked by no nails.   Finally when everything was dry (pretty much) tacky drying glue and gliding flakes were added to the leaves and parts of the flower.

Now hanging in the living room.   There are not really any challenges to share this with so I'm simply sharing it with you.

Happy New Year.