Creating Away from the Sun – My Art Process – Acrylic Painting
Away from the Sun is an acrylic painting on canvas, 16x20in. This painting won a regional Scholastic Honorable Mention. I experimented with using darker colors to create a different vibe from most of my art which typically consists of very saturated and bright colors. This painting was also slightly larger than the size I usually work at.
Ideas & Inspiration
I didn’t put too much effort into preparing for this piece, which I can clearly see now with the very basic composition. I could have done more with this painting, but I wanted a simple piece to just enjoy creating over the summer. As for the slight preparation for it, I just thought of the idea of sunflowers, but decided it would be more interesting painting the sunflowers facing away from a sun (the most ‘surrealist’ my art gets) and sketched it on some scrap paper.
Painting
For the painting, instead of sketching it out with pencil I decided to use thinned paint (this is my fun painting, remember?) to quickly get my idea down before painting the sunflowers. After that, I got started on the background. I knew I wanted the background to be purple to be a nice contrast with the sunflowers. I decided to go with a dark color. First, I had attempted to make the background look like fabric, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get the lighting right. So, I redid it, and with all of the layers I had built up it created a very interesting texture in-person.
The next part I started to work on was painting the sunflowers. My yellow paint I was using was thin, so it took multiple layers to build up the color that I wanted. I also had to add length to all of the petals halfway through painting them when I realized they were too short. I’m glad I did though, because it turned out a lot better than it would have if I kept them the same length.
Next up were the stems and leaf. The stems were kind of boring, but I absolutely love painting leaves! I liked how the leaf turned out, especially with the zigzag edges that make it more fun.
Lastly, I had the vase. The vase is based on a real one that I have, but the color was too similar to the background. I changed it to be a blue color that contrasted enough with the background but still didn’t take away attention from the flowers. Painting the white highlights on the vase was really fun!
The process of making this piece was very fun and not stressful, which was great for over the summer. I have another painting I’m working on this summer, but it may take a long time, so I won’t be able to post about that for quite a while! (It’s two 12”x36” canvases!!!) Well, I guess my conclusion is that if you are out of school for the summer, work on some art. It’s a great way to express your creativity and relax, and hopefully you have more time to work on it now!