Sunflower Series 1 Complete

The Sunflower painting series is completed. I decided the final 3 paintings would be on bees in flight over the sunflowers. I loved to watch these pollinators in action. Number 8 in the series was interesting to paint, and the main focus was on the bee. The dusting of pollen on the backside was an especially fun addition. At first I left white spots where I wanted the pollen dust and then painted yellow over them. One of the final touches of the painting was to add more yellow dots to emphasize the specs of pollen.

I created a time-lapse of this painting and posted it on Instagram and Youtube. Click on the words and the link will take you to the videos! It is nice to watch hours of work finished in 28 seconds. I hope everyone is enjoying the videos because they are fun to make. After finishing this video, I realized the wings of the bee were not painted on. The photograph I used for my reference did not show the wings because the bee was in flight over the center of the flower. The wings were added at the end of the painting by using a mixture of brown and blue color with a light wash of water to give them a transparent look. I am entranced by the evolution of the wings in this series.

Number 9 shows a different perspective of a bee from another side of the flower. I used the knowledge and style from the previous painting to recreate the transparent look of flight. The dusting of the pollen on the backside was used in the last two paintings to show how hard the bees were working. The photograph I used as a reference for Number 10 had two bees flying over a sunflower and I had to paint them closer together than the photograph in order to have them fit on this Tiny Painting. I am pleased with how these turned out.

I hope you enjoyed reading the blogs on this Sunflower Series and the bees as the subject for the last few paintings. Thank you for taking a walk through my garden with me, studying our pollinators, and reading about the art journey. If you have any comments or stories you would like to share with me, please send me an email. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

My weekend will be spent trying to figure out what to paint next out of the many photos I have taken in my lifetime. 

-Karen Hilliard