So I already painted sunflowers once this summer, which I blogged about at https://thirdagethoughts.com/sunflower-maze/. Yesterday I finished a second sunflower picture, inspired by the same experience. This one was a little out of my comfort zone because of the small figure, which I’m not sure I’ve done before. But I am a fan of expanding the comfort zone! I thought maybe I now have sunflowers out of my system but then I read that Van Gogh painted them 15 times. He wrote in a letter that he used sunflowers to express ‘gratitude’. I think I have plenty of reason to express that!
In my quest to get visiting grandkids to do something other
than screen time I located a sunflower maze at Goldpetal Farms in St. Mary’s
County. “We should do this,” I suggested, and luckily, they seemed willing
enough. Later, I was rewarded by GD #1 saying, “Mazes are FUN!” when we were
actually there walking the path under the towering flowers. Three was a good
number to do the maze thing because every time we got to a branch of the maze,
there was someone to break the tie if we couldn’t get consensus on which way to
go. Yes, it was fun, but we sure were running into a lot of dead ends! And we
drank up all the iced tea I had prepared! And it was HOT! We prided ourselves
on not using the map, but it seemed to me we kept stumbling on places that we
had been before. I spotted three teenagers clutching a crumpled bit of paper.
Could they be using the map? I couldn’t tell, but the next time I had to break
the tie about what direction to go I pointed to the way I had seen the teens
go. Soon after, we made it out! At the exit they had a painting station so you
could do a watercolor after your sunflower immersion experience. Later, back
home, I was able to also complete a sunflower oil painting of GD #3.
