Create a Sunflower with Pretty Pastels
Professional Artist Elida Field showed Helen how to create sunny sunflower with vibrant pastels.
· Pastels (any, but my favorite is Faber Castel)
· Black Construction Paper
· Fixative or aerosol hairspray
Making Pastel Sunflowers:
1. Turn your black paper vertically and using a light yellow or warm neutral color draw a large circle in the middle of the paper. Then draw a smaller circle in the middle of that circle.
2. Next begin drawing the petals around the outside circle. Simply draw a curved line with a small point at the end.
3. Once you’ve done your first row, start your second row of petals. To do this, find the little “v” in between the petals and make another petal line forming behind the first one and in between the petals.
4. Draw a stem by drawing a straight line down below the second layer of petals.
5. Draw the leaves be starting at the stem and drawing a curved line out making a point on the end and curved back to the stem.
6. Start filling in the flower from the center out. Pick three colors and stick with that, layering on top of each other and using the darkest one first for the center.
7. Then start filling in the petals working from dark to light.
8. Next you can shade in the stem and the leaves by choosing a light source from one side and shadowing from light to dark both on the stem and the leaves.
9. After you’ve filled in with color the petals, leaves, and stem, you can then start clocking in the background.
10. Turn two or three colors on their sides and start blocking in the background. If you used warmer colors for the flower then you should use cool colors for the background or vice versa.
11. Once you’ve filled in the entire paper with color, you can sign your name on the bottom right hand corner and hang it up for everyone to see!
Variation: You can always make a sunflower in cool colors with the background in warm colors or you could make a whole field of flowers in a sea of gold or yellow.