I Love Sunflowers
I visited Susan Fraser, a Deep River artist, on Sunday. She was gifting a mat cutter to the Deep River Library Arts Committee. Her home sits on 100 acres of land not five minutes outside of Deep River. I spotted a cheerful patch of sunflowers in her garden and asked if I could take a few shots. She was kind and generous — and surprised me with a bright bouquet of sunflowers to take home.
Me in the sunflower patch.
A few shots I took of her sunflowers. There were lots of bees happily buzzing around.
The sunflower bouquet that Susan gave me kept calling to me over the next 3 days. “Paint me, paint me” it kept saying, so I got to work.
I set up a still life on my table outside. (BTW - The bouquet is in my mom’s crystal vase. I thought of her as I set up the still life.)
I took the photo and put it into my Canva app. I use Canva a lot for making posters for the Deep River Library Arts Committee and have also used it for my Vietnam scrapbook. There is a very handy background remover. Here is the same photo with all the background removed.
I then asked Canva to make it look like a watercolour painting. It’s kinda scary how well it did it. Again, same photo with some AI help.
I spent this rainy afternoon painting this still life in gouache. I might still tweak it a bit but as of now, here it is.
I did use AI a bit to assist me. What are your thoughts about AI? Yeah or Nay?
The sunflowers have quieted down now and I hear other things calling my name. It can be very noisy sometimes in this house. 😜
