Thursday, November 10, 2016

Moonlight Sunflowers

 THE INSPIRATION: my neighbors amazing giant sunflowers! I took many,many,many pictures from all angles of these babies.

 THE CHALLENGE: A TRIPTYCH!    I wanted to do this as a series of 3 paintings, done as one complete image, so I build a cradle to hold the pieces together.

THE SKETCH: I needed a starting point, using the pictures I had taken, I quickly roughed out a layout that would allow me to space the paintings so each one could stand strongly on its own.

END RESULT AND GETTING THERE: For some reason, I decided to try out some black gesso as a base, instead of white. I thought that it would help me with the overall effect of the seeds in the end. I had to buy a white water color pencil to block in my rough idea from above. Originally this was to be a full color piece, but the white on black got me thinking, so I took a walk that night to ponder, walking past the sunflowers by moonlight, the idea hit! I have been working on it for 4 months now, and finished it last night. Though am not sure how to sign it. Does one sign each piece individually, or spread the signature across the 3 pieces???? I don't know.