Surrounded by Sunflowers

It’s been a month since I returned from our trip to Austria and Hungary. Been a bit preoccupied with personal things like further home improvements and now finally able to share and write about another watercolor painting I made immediately upon my return! During our sojourn, we came across quite a few sunflower fields. You do see them in Germany and Austria as well as occasionally here in the Netherlands, but most impressive was in Hungary where the fields are abundant with all the bright yellow sunflowers. So mesmerized by the beauty I was that I promised myself to paint about it as soon as I got home, and here we are…

Pencil Sketch

Watercolor seemed a logical choice for a painting a combination of flowers and us as main characters. First a rough pencil sketch on my Strathmore Visual Journal sketchbook for Watercolor: So far so cute!

Start Painting!

Kremer’s Pigmente Watercolors were chosen for this painting, the main reason being their intensively vivid colors. Also I had recently purchased a couple of their watercolor pans which come in a variety of themes such as “portrait” (great for faces), “earth” for landscape, iridescent, metal, greyscale and so forth. In addition, a large pan had a selection of different yellows, at least 4-5 of them for instance, and I thought this would be a great idea for painting sunflowers. Notice how well-saturated the colors are, almost like gouache!

I continued working away with the Kremer Pigmente, most impressed with how easy it was to combine the different colors in the “portrait” set. The iridescent pearly white was also tested on our collars, and though the photo below doesn’t do much justice, the shimmer is amazing. Pigmente was not used was for my pink dress, though, where I went for Gansai Kuretake Tambi instead because it did not have the shade of pink I needed. Gel pen was chosen for the eyes. As for our hair, I firstly drew with aquarelle pencil then blended with a wet brush dipped in the Pigment watercolors. Dotted the flower centers with white gel pen, and here we are now!

Very pleased how this watercolor painting turned out. The Kremer Pigment watercolors are truly outstanding due to their color intensity and almost matte effect. They are a bit pricey, mind you, but worth every penny; you need not use much and a little goes a long way. And now, I am so happy I was able to complete this painting right after our vacation to Hungary as a reminder of this memorable time we had there!