Lessons From Sunflowers: Part I

Some drawings come quickly. Take the gesture drawing from my last post, A Sweet Sketch of a Lovely Little Girl. The entirety of that portrait took a mere matter of minutes to render from top to bottom. Other drawings, however, take time to compose. These drawings are a test of endurance and a measure of one’s patience. This is the story of one such piece.

Sunflower Worshiping, 2021-2022

pencil foundation sketch (work in progress)

18” x 24”

It all began last summer. My initial inspiration came from one of my sister’s spectacular sunflowers. The plant stood tall and proud. Its petals were unapologetically bright yellow, glowing and radiant in the summer sun. Of all the beautiful plants in her garden, this one stood out amongst the rest and it immediately commanded my attention. Some subjects find you, almost as though they jump out and visually grab you. Their sheer presence yells, “hey, over here! Draw me!” No searching or wondering is required with these subjects and right off the bat you just know, “oh man, this is going to be a good one!” Chelle’s sunflower definitely possessed that attention grabbing je ne sais quoi.

Because I had every confidence that Chelle’s sunflower was going to be one of those “good ones” I wanted to be careful and take my time. The plant was magnificent in real life and I wanted to do it justice in my rendering. I studied and cataloged it. I photographed it and recorded it from numerous angles in an attempt to preserve its every detail. After all, flowers don’t last forever and I knew that even one as glorious as this would eventually wither and fade. 

I was spoiled for choice when I reviewed the fruits of my photoshoot. The flower was different and beautiful from seemingly every angle. In an effort to hone in on the ideal composition for my piece, I decided to take my top favorite photos for a gesture “test-drive.” Gesture drawing (also known as just “gesture”) is a great exercise that has a lot of useful applications. I talk about gesture a lot in this blog… but that’s just because it’s so dang useful! In addition to being a fantastic warm-up exercise, gesture is also a quick and easy way to determine how enjoyable the experience of rendering your subject will be. I call this “taking my subject for a test-drive.” 

There are some truths about constructing a drawing (or painting) that one can only ascertain by actually doing. Everything up until the point of hands-on rendering is just a lovely daydream of what could be. For example, sometimes a source photograph that I thought would be really exciting to draw turns out to be no fun at all when the charcoal hits the newsprint. Conversely, there are other times when a photograph that I had dismissed as ho-hum proves to be loaded with interesting drawing moments! Gesturing helps me to quickly evaluate source photos/subjects and make a selection so I can move on to the good stuff - the real drawing. These preliminary practice sketches allow me to answer important questions about my subject like; what is the difficulty level of my subject - is there more challenge than I bargained for or not enough? Are there moments that don’t translate well into drawing and just look awkward? Will this particular angle best represent what I’m trying to communicate about my subject? And most importantly, how does drawing this source photo (or subject) make me feel? I want to know upfront if I’m going to enjoy working on this piece for the next few hours …or the next few months. I have found it is far better to uncover the answers to these types of questions sooner rather than later. No one wants to be two months into a piece only to discover that the rocks in the lower left corner are a nightmare to render.

After my gesture test-drive, I now had two parts of the puzzle: my perfect subject, and the perfect angle. All that was left to do was to draw it. 

I knew, from the moment that I saw it, that I wanted to showcase the bold colors of Chelle’s sunflower. In my mind, it just wouldn’t be a sunflower without that golden yellow head and the neon green stalk. I decided that a combination of watercolor and watercolor pencil would be ideal to let my subject’s vivacity shine through. I’m really loving the combination of these two media and have used them in tandem quite a bit lately. The two materials compliment each other perfectly and, to me, bring the best of both worlds to the table. Watercolor paints are soft and subtle. Their transitions are organic; flowing and blooming into one another. Whereas watercolor pencils present the artist with the ability to have more crisp controlled delineation and precision in where the color is applied. Watercolor is also a translucent medium which means that it lets the bright white of the paper shine through the paint producing areas of color that seem luminous. I couldn’t wait to splash that sunshine yellow all over my paper, but that is exactly what I had to do because before I could paint I had to plan. 

I took my time laying in the foundation for this piece. I very slowly and carefully constructed a pencil map describing where every detail of my subject would live. This might seem like some sort of elaborate procrastination but it is actually one of the most critical parts of the process. A good strong foundation is essential to the final success of a piece and can save you a lot of pain and suffering later on down the road. This is one of those special principles that applies to both art and life.

The process of laying in the foundation was intense. I would work for a couple of hours then have to put my hands in my pockets and take a break in order to maintain my concentration and accuracy. Hours turned into days, the days turned into weeks, and eventually the seasons changed. The sunflowers themselves were long gone by the time I had reached a point of contentment with my foundation map. 

The sunshine too was starting to fade, giving way to the rainstorms of fall and I found that the Back 40 was no longer a hospitable place to draw. I thought about continuing to work on the piece indoors but it felt silly. After all, my subject was the embodiment of the sun. It was a symbol of the warmth and bounty of summer and rendering it under incandescent lights while the cold, and rain, and snow, raged outside felt insincere somehow.  So I set the drawing aside and waited for a sunny day.

Did the sunshine ever return to Northern Idaho? Did Angela successfully finish this marathon of a drawing? Did Dale lick this snowball?! Join me next Saturday for Lessons From Sunflowers: Part II to find out!