When I see a sunflower, I get the BIGGEST smile on my face.
I love, love, love sunflowers!
Most people don’t love sunflowers and that’s okay. I’m sure you probably pegged me as a rose or tulip kind of girl, and although I do love a good bouquet of roses, sunflowers make my heart melt.
Sunflowers just make me smile. 🙂
Today’s card is inspired by my own artwork: The Sunflower Garden.
Years ago, I created a sunflower series of brightly colored sunflowers on a black background. I know what you’re thinking, “A black background?”. Well, yes.
What’s wrong with a black background?
Before I finish my explanation for my series, let me give you a little background on me as an artist.
I’m considered a contemporary artist – and some of my work clearly reflects it, especially my money series (Yes…there is real money in some of my paintings and they are all for sale so just ask for the price and let’s make a deal!) Anyhow, in college I was known to do something highly unusual. From my seventh grade art class, I learned how to draw upside down, and I used to do this technique in my college art classes. Well, in my Drawing II class, we had to pick an artist from a list and draw in their style. The artist I wanted to draw from wasn’t on the list, but I got permission. Can you take a guess who it was?
Give up?
It was Henri Matisse, who has a thing for drawing and painting from nude models, and…do something unexpected in his work.
Yes, I did a drawing of a nude model (because I was an art student this is pretty normal in the art world and not inappropriate) and put something unexpected in the drawing – because I couldn’t get the model’s hand to look right, I drew in a big flower where the hand was supposed to be. Then, I drew a stem from the flower to the right edge of the paper – something Matisse would totally do.
Well, when it came time to get feedback from my peers, most didn’t like what I did with the flower. However, my professor made the comment, “this is something Matisse would do”, I knew I got an A on my final piece and in the class. 🙂
Okay, back to my painting series and today’s card. So, I decided that my Matisse moment would be to put the sunflowers on a black background so they would “pop”.
For my card, I just did a quick drawing of what a painting would look like in my series. Check out my artwork – which by the way is all for sale (hint, hint).
In a tribute to myself, here’s today’s card.
02.26.14 Inspired by my own artwork
© 2014 Stacy Schilling
365 Days Thank You Card Design Challenge 