Sunflowers: #PAINTCOACH Patreon

This 9×12 painting of a vase of sunflowers is from one of the PaintCoach Patreon lessons. I’m on a sunflower roll…

For the stems, I used my Liquitex BASICS Green Gray, my new Green Earth, and Phthalo Green (Yellow Shade) with Liquitex Cad-Free Yellow.

For the petals, I used Cad-Free Yellow, Yellow Ochre, and Cad-Free Orange desaturated with Ultramarine Blue.

The vase was done with Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue and Titanium White.

Dying Sunflowers — Painting #100

Wow! I’ve actually made 100 paintings. This one was my first from life rather than a photo. And, man, these sunflowers are in bad shape! I bought them specifically to paint them, but I’ve been drawing rather than painting for the last week or so. (I did take some photos of them right when I bought them, though, so I can try again.)

I decide to use my new Green Earth paint for the stems and leaves (mixed with my go-to Chromium Oxide Green. I used Diarylide Yellow for the petals, and a mix of Burnt Umber Light w/ Carbon Black for the faces of the flowers.

Quick Study: December Evening Sky

For this study, I used another of my own photos — this one taken one evening in early December of 2021 from my backyard. The Moon was actually a crescent at the time, but I had a cheap smartphone at the time with a lousy camera, so it looks full, and I carried on with that in my painting. Jupiter is shining above the Moon, and Venus is near the silhouette of the chimney.

This was done on a 4×6 piece of 300 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper. The house silhouette is blue-black, and the sky was painted in tints of dioxazine purple. The Moon, Jupiter and Venus are painted in a yellow-white mix.