Art Class - Two versions of Van Gogh's Sunflowers

Sgraffito Sunflowers

 No Art class as it was half-term. Thought I would keep in practice by copying one of Van Gogh's Sunflowers using acrylic and trying to mix my own colours to match the colours of the reproduction.  Tried to get the effect of the brush strokes by using a gel medium but found this quite difficult with the brushes. Might try the medium another time with palette knives. Finished acrylic painting below.

My copy

For my sgraffito Sunflowers I used oil pastels put down in blocks of random colours, covered this  in black oil pastel and then scratched the design using an old kitchen knife.  In future I will use Indian ink on the top instead of black oil pastel as this version turned out to be quite messy to do.  The Indian ink method seems to seal in the oil pastel so you don't end up covered in black. I wanted the background colours to be random rather than laying down the colours for the flowers etc because I was aiming for a decorative design, doodling in patterns for the flowers heads. 

Lesley x