Flowers in the Field

"They're All Looking At Me!" pastel, 8x10

I'm hoping to plan a floral still life class for my weekly students soon, but thought we'd ease into that subject matter by working with some flowers in the landscape. One of the areas I hope to cover in the upcoming still life class is lighting. In the source photo I used in today's demo, I had some dramatic backlighting to work with, and wanted to make sure to capture that drama. Just as with setting up flowers in a still life, I rearranged the placement of the flowers in the field to create my composition.

Below are some progression shots, beginning with the liquid underpainting. In the underpainting, I set up the backlit glow of the sunflowers with a warm, vibrant orange, and used a variety of purples in the greenery behind the flowers to set that area back and also for some nice contrast beneath the greens that would be added later.

My source photo...