Ever since I moved into my new place, I've been doing a lot of gardening. So far, I've successfully managed to grow a few crops from scratch, and this summer I decided I wanted to attempt growing sunflowers. I have around 10 growing from the seed right now; so far 4 have sprouted, and there's another one just about ready to pop up from the ground soon. My hope is they all grow into full-fleged flowers before the end of the summer, and I'm optimistic with the rate things are going.
I do confess though that sunflowers weren't exactly the first flower I had in mind for this painting. I was mulling over several choices before ultimately settling on sunflowers, since this was meant to be a summery piece more than anything. And what better flower encapsulates the summer, right?
I was also trying to attempt art techniques that deviated from my usual process. I was also trying my best to study how
my friend's rendering style works. Usually, I would tackle rendering by shading in grayscale then make it more colorful if the final image looked too pale. This time, in my attempt to emulate his work, I went straight into painting with the base and rendered using the same flat colors. I like how more vibrant it's proven to be, and how I use less layers with this compared to before.
However, after some thought, I might just end up going back to my old shading tactics for the sake of consistency. I worry less about getting the colors and lighting right when I use the older method. And after looking at my final art piece, it feels like I've hardly changed... Like I've hit a glass ceiling of sorts and I need to figure out how to breach it somehow. Perhaps I need to take classes in art again... Or maybe I'm burning out without realizing it and I should take a break from art for a while?
Anyway, this was mostly a birthday gift to myself, albeit a late one. π° Arc became relevant again in Chapter 16 (finally), and I wanted to depict them in my art after not painting about them in months. I had another WIP sketch of them that was more story-relevant, but I opted for this more wholesome version that tied to my gardening in some way (I think I'm meant to be a Setagaya Agricultural Academy attendee with how I've been invested in the outdoors at this rate π).
