#2437 "Linda's Sunflowers"

This larger studio painting is based on #2435 "Overcast Sunflowers". I loved the design of the smaller painting and thought that it very much deserved a larger format. The Tri Art canvases are the best surfaces that I had. I hoped that my efforts would be deserving of the fine archival surface. 

I described what I was painting to Linda but she suggested that they should be called "Wendy's Sunflowers". As I wrote in the description of my other sunflower paintings such as #2419 "September Sunflower", the seeds did come from Wendy Banks but this singular plant owed its existence purely to Linda. The chipmunks got two of the three seeds but not the single seed that produced this giant. 

This composition is comprised of a group of seven blossoms of various ages. That is odd. There is also a similarity with an assembly of artists whose work and legacy I admire. I would assign the largest bloom to Tom Thomson, followed by Lawren Harris and J.E.H. MacDonald. Other art patrons will certainly have their own opinions. There is actually an eighth bloom if one looks closely. It is peeking out from behind Lawren. One of the best complements I receive is from people believing that I could have been an eighth member of the Group of Seven. That is high praise but I am content with just trying to get better and being the hermit Group of One. 

When I showed Linda the progress on the painting after a few days of effort, she hesitated. She said she had to pick her words carefully. I guess artists are known to be sensitive. Linda said it looked like Vincent's sunflower paintings. Maybe Vincent was right when he remarked that the "the sunflower is mine, in a way." I was painting what I saw and felt which was possibly the same experience for Vincent more than a hundred years previous. Maybe everything has been done and said before but for me, it was a complement to think that my art reminded others of the work by Vincent. 

I had a tube of emerald green oil paint which I had purchased from Mario Airomi. It was a colour I rarely used but there are times when that hue is needed. This painting was one of those times. The tube from Mario had long been used up so I obtained a new tube of emerald green from Currys shipped to my Studio door. 

I signed this painting twice. In the lower right I scratched my name in the wet paint with a tooth pick and dotted the "i" with quinacridone red. In the bottom left I signed my name with a small brush in quinacridone red on the complementary colours of the sunflower leaf. 

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