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Sunday, July 31, 2005

Sunflowers


DH brings flowers home from the grocery store every weekend. This weekend he got a bunch of sunflowers, which I dumped into a blue pottery vase. I feel very VanGogh this afternoon ... Posted by Picasa

11 comments:

annie said...

They look so lovely!

Anonymous said...

I got here from Laurel-lines and am glad I did . Excellent work - the flowers are strong and vibrant. I shall revisit!

Cin said...

I agree, beautiful colors, and so will join tom c, and echo "strong and vibrant".

Anonymous said...

Great painting! It is very vibrant and expressive. Just wonderful. You did a really good job on the vase too. By the way, what kind of paper did you use? Did you use watercolor? I can't seem to get very vibrant color result from my watercolor.

Cheers.

Linda said...

Thanks for the comments. I'll admit to doing the happy dance every time I look at the vase on this one. (big goofy grins!!!) I think I had a major breakthrough in my understanding of watercolor, not just color theory, but the use of transparent vs opaque, lifting vs staining, granulating vs non-granulating. It will come and go, I'm sure!

Evy - I use a canson watercolor sketchbook, which has a low to middle range quality of paper when compared to heavy single sheets, but is the best watercolor sketchbook I've found. I glazed most of the layers, which I think does make the colors a bit more vibrant, until the very end, when I really went wet-in-wet. I didn't use any black, grey, or "earth" type pigments (except for a touch of burnt sienna in the center of the sunflowers, which I regretted the minute I did it) which makes the colors much clearer, I think.

Again, thanks to you all!

Julie Durocher said...

These are awesome! I love the blue vase and the sunflowers together. Perfect. In about 2 weeks I am planning to attend an all day painting workshop where we will be painting Sunflowers in the the fields. I am very excited about this opportunity.

Anonymous said...

Linda! This is so fabulous! It is fun to compare our two sunflowers-in-blue vase sketches---could they BE more different? I agree, your blue vase is VERY well done---with this and the peach, I can tell you are really mastering the medium. I know what you mean about the earth colors---I banished them from my palette this year and have only just recently brought them back on a very limited basis. Anyway, this is gorgeous--- I've come back to look at it several times!

Kathleen Pequignot said...

The colors are vibrant and bold--very nice artwork!

pedalpower said...

Beautiful!

Terri said...

Wow Linda, these are stunning! Blue and yellow are a gorgeous combination at the best of times, but you've really made these something special. I love what you did with the vase. I think even Vincent would be impressed. :o)

Teri said...

Linda, these are absolutely gorgeous!! You have made my favorite flowers just awesome! Thanks for sharing them, and the type of paper you used.

All your paintings are beautiful as well.