No. 451: Sunflowers

"Sunflowers" by Tom Wills, September 2019. Watercolor on ink and pencil.

It's a Farmall, friend of the fields and a fixture at county fairs.
The big red tractor, I'm sure, is older than the parents of Jack and Luke, the brothers visiting the sunflower maze at Von Bergen's Country Market in Hebron, Ill.

Restored, antique farmhouse frame.

Back here in Ohio, grandma asked me if I could do a painting from a picture she'd taken that golden day.
Turns out, I could.
Grandma already had a spot picked out over her fireplace.  All she needed was the picture.

Home.

I was in between jobs, both of the art kind and the making a living type, when I agreed to take on the project.  A sketch was worked up first, so that we could agree on the size and image. Many messages were exchanged over a few weeks.

Looking sketchy.

The sketch is the skeleton of the painting. Once the bones are in, then the colors can grow, from light to dark. I washed this sketch with yellow, green, blue, red and brown -- in that order. I tried a few white streaks to approximate high grass. The wash serves as the pillow upon which the final colors will rest.
  

It's a wash.

I purposely "built" the tractor and landscaping around the boys. It was a distant picture and I couldn't see their faces clearly, so I knew that detailing the two would take extra care. There were two sets of legs entwined on those tractor pedals, little arms and hands, rosy cheeks and some lime green sunglasses.

Building those boys.

I painted over all of the blacks and whites once the boys were pretty much finished. This made the tractor and landscaping "pop" from the watercolor paper. It also served to clean up some messy lines.
The sunflowers in the background are approximated in by design. Up close they appear as dots and splotches of yellow, orange, green, brown, white and black. But from a few feet away, they're easily seen as sunflowers. Golden magic!

Jack and Luke

Grandma and I talked about frames throughout the process.  What would work? Too light, too dark, too big, too modern -- what to do for a farm painting over a fireplace?
Luckily I have a friend who runs a local shop full of furniture and frames. In the midst of the painting I came across a big old frame tucked behind her counter. She didn't have a price for it, but I swore I'd be back when she did.

Here the unfinished frame is just placed over the painting, to see how it fits.

The frame is beautiful but needed a little touch up work, so I mixed up some gold, black and brown and brushed the mixture onto the rough spots -- using my right index finger and a paper towel to rub it in and make it match both in color and shine.  In many of my pieces where older frames are used, the frame itself becomes art.

The frame as art.

Grandma and I love the frame. It's now extra rigid, sealed and heavy.  It will last through Jack and Luke's children -- and grandchildren!

 

 

I don't imagine the boys cared much about all of this on that sunny Illinois day, as they imagined piloting the giant red Farmall across the field, kicking up dust and smoke and making big tractor noises.
But I hope they turned around and noticed the gold. The sunflowers are where the magic is.

To inquire about an original watercolor or pencil illustration, contact Tom Wills on facebook or at willstom01@gmail.com. Prices vary by project size and scope.