PETER & THE SUNFLOWERS

I promised my husband a picture for his birthday (LAST year!) which I finally got around to and finished in time for his birthday this year.





Last year, Peter grew some amazing sunflowers, over 14ft high (he's 6ft) as you can see from the photos. These were from a packet of free seeds I got with a magazine. We needed some large art for the sitting room wall and as I have to carry everything home by bus & tube, I was rather limited on hauling large canvases.

So the logical thing to do was paint 3 smaller canvases and hang them up in a row - instant trytich! I have exaggerated re the amount of sunflowers in the painting (there are 7, not 3 as in Real Life) so Peter has a sunflower for every day of the week. Here are the step-by-step stages, so you can see how things evolved.

Stage 1 - I roughed out the entire thing, across the three canvases which are precariously balanced on my art table. You can see how cramped it is. I printed out several photos in different sizes so I had something to work from.

Stage 2 - More detail, and the basic colours slammed in.




Stage 3 - I painted the word "SUN" over and over in the centre of each flower.



Stage 4 - Everything was too bright, so I painted a thin layer of yellow ochre over the wording to knock it back a bit.


Stage 5 - I still didn't like it, felt it was gimmicky & over the top, so I painted over with Golden gel with sparkly bits in it.


The finished result, up on the wall.

Peter is absolutely ecstatic with it (thank God) and I can live with it as well. Good thing as it is directly opposite the sofa, and above the TV.

The fencing is constructed with foam core board which I painted to simulate wood, stuck on with PVA (white) glue. The "nails" are antique-finish brads.

I still feel I didn't get Peter's hand holdin the cigarette quite right. Still, as it's the first portrait I have attempted in around 20 years, I am pretty satisfied, all in all. Whew!