Sunflowers always make me think of Van Gogh. His painting, Sunflowers, is why. He painted multiple artworks with sunflowers as the main subject matter. To him, they represented gratitude. (vangoghmuseum.nl). I wanted to do an artwork inspired by Van Gogh’s sunflowers for multiple reasons- one of them being it’s one of my favorite paintings of his. Another being that ever since we got married, my husband has called me his sunflower. When I am struggling, he will buy them for me. Now we also call our daughter our sunflower. This year has been a difficult one for me and my family, finding reasons to be grateful and creating help me deal with the struggles we’ve been facing. I wanted to create something celebrating the garden, the family, that I created with my husband.I wanted to create something celebrating my daughter, my sunflower.
For this artwork, I used a multitude of media. The main one being watercolor, but I also used inktense watercolor pencils and some ink pens. I had never used the watercolor pencils before, and I like them! I think I need to experiment with them some more to get truly comfortable but I enjoyed the intense color that they laid down. I also really enjoyed being able to use them to correct some proportions later on in the process. I hope you enjoyed reading about my creative process, and stick around for more Van Gogh inspired art.
As with most portraits, I started with a quick sketch using a watercolor pencil. Then I started laying down watercolor layers. I mainly used yellow, red, burnt sienna, and a purple I mixed myself. I tried to use blue a little bit, but IMMEDIATELY regretted it and tried to undo it as much as possible. This is one of my favorite things about watercolors; there are so many ways to make adjustments and corrections throughout the creative process.
If you’d be interested in commissioning a portrait with a similar style to this one, send me a message!
This website is a great resource to learn more about Van Gogh’s Sungflowers. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0031v1962
I also recommend this one for an up close view Van Gogh’s work: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/sunflowers-vincent-van-gogh/hwEGmsM-FoHAwA
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