9 Sunflower Panels, Planning Stage

I’m about to start painting 9 more additions to my Sunflower art series.  Each piece is a 16″ x 16″ hardboard panel with a deep wooden frame.  Although there are many options for displaying the paintings in this series, which can be mixed and matched, hung together or alone, these 9 paintings will be meant to hang together, in a grid like this.  (That’s my Quani Belle hanging out in the top left corner.)

You can’t tell by the above photo because the faint pencil lines are so hard to photograph, but I’ve drawn a design onto each panel, to use as a guide once I begin applying color.

Scribbled here and there all over the designs are shorthand notes to myself, illegible to all but me.  They say things like, “brite-dark-brite,” “gray-blu,” “white red dots, red yellow dots,” “BG deep green,” “lite shadow,” “indian red into brown” and “purple/gold.”  Although what’s here now doesn’t look like much, the hardest work on this project has already been done, all the details carefully considered and a plan made.  These are my blueprints.

The painting stage, although time-consuming, will be simpler and more meditative than the planning stage.  I’ll sit down with my colors and let the hours slip away as I methodically follow my directions to myself.  For me, the painting part is more about intuition and flow, and less about thinking and planning.  My color palette is decided and my tubes of paint are laid out and ready for me.