last week i painted an ikea malma mirror with sunflowers. a couple of ladies asked me to take them through the steps. i thought that it would be clearer if i drew up a rough instructional guide. i would like to share this instructional guide here. hope that it will help anyone who wants to try and paint a sunflower :)
the techniques i use :
> one stroke painting - round brush #6
> stipple work- stippling brush (or any old, stiff, flat top brush)
> dots work - stylus
the colors are from jo sonja, you will need a color converter chart if you are using another brand.
petals : yellow oxide, yellow light, warm white, yellow orange (orange cadmium), pale gold (optional)
center : brown earth, burnt umber, yellow oxide, yellow light, warm white, moss green
how to paint the petals :
click to enlarge
step 1 :- draw a circle to represent the center of the flower
- proceed to paint the first layer of the petals. do this
sparsely- painting stroke is from out to in as shown by the arrow
- fully load round brush with
yellow oxide. using the tip of the brush, start with a little wiggle then press (and spread) the whole brush down as you approach the flower center. that's how you get the thin to thick stroke of the petal (as shown in the picture below)
wiggle with the tip of brush
and press
step 2 :- using the same stroke technique, paint the 2
nd color :
yellow light- occasionally half load the brush with yellow oxide to give the petals a 2 dimensional color
step 3 :- add the 3rd color
warm white- maintain yellow light as main color. fully load brush with yellow light, and *tip* the brush with warm white. use the same stroke and you will get the variegated look on the petals
*tip* - tipping is to fully load the brush with one color and then adding a dash of another color just at the tip of the brush
tipping
variegation
step 4 :- add the 4
th color
yellow orange or if you want a more dramatic look,
cadmium orange- by this stage your sunflower petals are almost done. therefore the orange is used just for tipping and a little variation.
*experiment with full loading, half and half loading and tipping, and your petals will be alive with variegation :) my art teacher told us to keep the brush somewhat dirty, that means don't wash the brush clean when you go from one color to another. when the colors mix, that's when the magic happens :)now for the center of the flower :
click to enlarge
step 1 :- base the center of the flower with a medium brown color. i use
brown earth here
step 2 :- use the *stippling* technique to stipple the outside of the circle a darker shade of brown:
burnt umber- stipple the inside of the circle with
yellow oxide and then in the very middle, a little
moss green- blend the colors so the shade goes from dark to light
*stippling is done with a flat stiff brush (any old brush will do). load color on a
rather dry brush and start pounding the brush on the place you want to stipple. the effect will be an uneven scruffy looking layer of paint. usually used to create a fuzzy effect like teddy bear fur or the center of a flower.
stippling
step 3 :- use a stylus, or any round tip apparatus
- add dots in
yellow light, warm white, moss green to the center of the flower
stylus and dot work
and you are done!here is an example of the mirror i painted :)
for the extra glow, as this is going to be a
christmas gift, i added an extra color and tipped some of the upper petals with
pale gold. i also *spattered* the flowers with diluted pale gold to create the stardust effect.
*spatter - loading the paint on a toothbrush and running your thumb through the brush to create little spatter dots. like we did as kids in school :)
hope this is enough information for those of you who wants to try painting a sunflower :) but in anything, practice makes perfect!
happy pimping! :)
LOL! i just received another award... golden bog award... goodness knows i have no idea what it means ... all i know is bog means swamp? correct? no? so am i a swamp thing? anyway... thank you mr argentum vulgaris (or more commonly known as AV) for asking me to grab this from his blog nether region of the earth II. if you are brave enough, please go visit him at this blog and/or another called tomas arcanum. 
