"Sunflowers in the Painted Hills", an original pastel painting.

On a recent trip to the Painted Hills with my family, we came across these sunflowers.  I loved the colors in the background!

"Sunflowers in the Painted Hills", pastel on board, 11x14
Available through Etsy

Here are a few progress photos:

 A watercolor underpainting over the initial sketch.  Those watercolor underpaintings are so fun!

The first layers of pastel - I was trying to get the feeling of the background hill while still keeping it really abstract and relaxed.

A close up of starting work on the sunflower.  I am using a sheet of glassine to keep from smearing the pastel around while I am working!

Here are the completed sunflowers "floating in space".  I wanted the foreground and the background to be out of focus, and the sunflowers to be the only crisp part.  I had to do a bit of thinking about how to approach the foreground grasses.

Thanks for looking!  :)