Sunday, July 10, 2011

"Sunflower with Dots" 10"x10" oil on canvas panel


I bought a bunch of sunflowers at the market the other day. I love the shape of the flower. I was searching through my flat file for a piece of colored paper to use as the background of the painting and came across a pastel drawing I did of dots, mainly to test this new paper. I had fun doing the dots and getting reacquainted with my pastels. Why not use this as the background? So, that's where the dots are coming from. I think the sunflower looks a bit weird with just the one leaf, but I wasn't thinking about it too much at the time and just painted what I saw. Looks a bit weird to me.  I do have another sunflower to post and painted the flowers again today.
 I've got myself backed into a corner with re-examining what my priorities are when I approach a painting.  I think that I'm not putting enough thought into the planning stage, because I'm just so excited to begin that I just stumble right in. I believe that design should be my first issue that I tackle, then my color palette... But then sometimes I look at my shelves with my still life things arranged and just want to dive in and paint "THIS"!...then try to make it work somehow. I remember in painting classes being disciplined to paint something I don't really want to, learning to go beyond my desire and tackle the academics of painting head on....not to get wrapped up in the sentimentality of the things. But at home, I'm the boss, and I want to do what I want to do and, not necessarily, what would be best for my skills training. Sometimes I find it beneficial to set up problems for myself to tackle in the beginning. But then I find on most days everything is a problem in the beginning. I'm daily struggling to "find myself" and my "voice" through my painting. Isn't that enough? I know the best thing for me to do is practice and to practice everyday. On good days I SEE everything in brushstrokes. What a way to travel through life. Huh?



5 comments:

Julie Whitmore Pottery said...

what a wonderful painting.
Love the way you do sunflowers
xx
julie

Julia said...

Hi Kathryn, your painting is lovely.

I know what you mean with not spending enough time in planning as I feel the same way about making my designs for rugs. I just want to jump in right away and start to pull loops and I always think that I'll figure it out on my way. lol.

I know that I should spend much more time in planning and also in visualizing what my product will sort of look like but I go on faith that it will all turn out ok.

I'm not very disciplined in my craft. I go with the main idea and things develops from that afterward. JB

susan jenkins said...

I just love this and LOVE the dots! Beautifully done!!
xo Susan

dulcy said...

I love this post Kathryn! I've been wondering what to do next with my pastels.... and sunflowers are at the farm just across the street. I may pick some up today and give it a try. I know what you mean about design. As Julia said, it's hard not to jump right in and start pulling up that color through the linen. Actually, some of my best work has been done that way. Sometimes when I plan too much, that's just what my rug or mat looks like. Planned too much. When I let myself go and just grab lots of scraps of not only wool, but ribbon, yarn, etc. I end up with something more interesting. I have a couple of small garden pieces I've done that way that I'll repost. Beautiful painting!!
xo
dulcy

LindaHunt said...

As I stated before, "this is one of my favorite paintings and such fun!". The course of events that you go through are similar to mine in some ways.