Description

12×16″ Acrylic Plein Air Painting on Canvas

One more little taste of summer on your tongue before the leaves all turn and autumn fills our lungs.

Sunflowers are some of my favorite subjects because of their cheery bright yellows and the vastness of the fields. This year, I decided to focus in on a single sunflower instead of the whole field.

I start most of my paintings these days with a canvas toned in magenta. I just love the way it pops through in the final piece.

From there, I usually start with the part that either scares or excites me the most. In this case, I was excited about placing the flowers.

Then came some midtones to fill up the scene and I started mapping out the shadows.

After that, I was all about capturing the light and texture. Which was a challenge because they both kept changing with the light and the wind! So I ended up with a quick, bold approach, partly because a storm was rolling in.

And that’s kind of what you deal with when you paint en plein air! Sometimes it’s so bright out that you have to wear sunglasses just to see. Sometimes the wind knocks your easel over. Sometimes it rains on you!

I’ve experienced all three and yet I still love it.

Maybe I’m just crazy though. I am an artist, after all