My Sunflower Story

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I was thinking about Vincent Van Gogh and how he died to early and never knew how his paintings moved people and changed the art world forever. I have a book that contains all the letters he sent to his brother, Theo, and it is illustrated with the paintings that he wrote about. When you read those letters, you realize how much being an artist meant to him and how he suffered for his sanity. I was wondering what I would say if I could write to Vincent and that gave me the idea for this painting.

I wanted to tell him how much his paintings are appreciated and that they are in private collections and museums all over the world. To accomplish this, I wanted my painting to express a mood rather than just be another sunflower painting. Yellow was Vincent's favorite color and I painted the twisting petals to represent his struggles and his triumphs. The cool and mysterious background leaves represent the different directions he traveled as an artist, some of which were unresolved because of his early death. The fact that none of the leaves are complete because they are all cropped by the borders adds to that illusion. Finally, the sunflower, even though it is in the last stages of its life, emerges bright and colorful and represents the glorious legacy of Vincent's paintings.

There are many ways to create mood in a painting and here I used arrangement of elements and scale. Sunflowers are a universal symbol that add layers of meaning to a work of art. A painting can stir feelings sometimes in ways we struggle to put into words. In this case, to complete the story, I painted the Van Gogh stamp as a way to send the painting to Vincent.

I confess that I kept this painting in my studio for two years and then made some simple changes. To make it more dramatic, I darkened some of the background. This made the sunflower appear even brighter. For the petals, I used lemon, transparent. and cadmium yellow plus cobalt violet. The pattern of seeds that form the head of the flower were painted with burnt sienna, lemon yellow, and carmine. The leaves are different combinations of terre verte, cerulean blue, olive, cobalt violet and mineral violet. Vincent's hat is yellow ochre and burnt sienna and his skin tones are yellow ochre and cadmium red. The background on the stamp is terra verde and cerulean blue. Creating a mood makes painting intriguing! Consider signing up for my one-day workshop, "The Art of Mood: Painting Your Creative Vision". Go to my website for more information. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton