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Day 38 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Texas Sunflowers - by George De Chiara

Texas Sunflowers

  We've been in a severe drought here in Texas this year. It's been hot and dry for weeks now. Even though I can't recall the last time we had a good rain (it's had to have been at least 6 weeks ago), somehow, just down the road from us, there's a field of wild sunflowers growing and blooming like it's Spring. I have no idea how these flowers are surviving this heat, but there they are, going strong for several acres. Yesterday, I went down and cut a few of the flowers to paint. As soon as I got them home, I gave them a good drink of water and they perked right up. I just knew they would make good models to paint so I set up a still life with them and got to painting.

 Then a funny thing happened. About an hour into my painting, I realized I was heading for a bad place so I wiped my canvas clean and started again. Another two or three hours of painting passes, and the only thing I had to show for it was another wiped down canvas. Hmm... somethings wrong, but what? So I thought, I'll change the arrangement of my still life. Okay, good, now back to painting. Another hour or two, and, again, the only thing I've accomplished is wiping down my canvas. Finally, I just took a break. I did everything I could think of to get rid of the heebie jeebies that were killing my painting attempts. I let a few hours go by to try to forget about the day's missteps and then went back to painting. This time I could feel things were different.

 I was painting a little slower and paying closer attention to what I was doing. Slowly, a painting I was happy with started to develop on my canvas. Eureka! I remembered how to paint again! Late into the night I worked with my new-found joy until I had finished this painting. It was too late to post it last night, so I'm making up for that today. I don't have any step-by-step pictures for this one. To be honest, I wasn't ever sure I'd get a painting and I was getting tired of taking pictures of paintings that kept getting scraped off.

Texas Sunflowers

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

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