As summer wanes ...

... I've been working on a fun colorful painting from a bouquet that I put together 

with Peruvian Lilies (Astroemeria) and Sunflowers!

A stretcher frame - of sorts - that I found ages ago 

surfaced in my (newly cleaned!) studio. I really liked the size.

  I had my woodworker husband shape the inside edges

so the canvas could be stretched neatly over the bars, 

so they wouldn't show thru the canvas. 

Don't have a photo of that, dang. 

I stretched the canvas over that wooden frame 

and prepared the canvas with a dark gray gesso.

 Here is what the back of the painting looks like. 

Here are the Alstroemeria. (On their last legs ... the sunflowers didn't last very long.)

The painting went from a pencil sketch to 

this watercolor (pencil) sketch -

- to this -

- and this is the finished painting!

Sunflowers + Alstroemeria    oil on canvas    21 x 14 x 1.25 inches

Thanks so much for dropping by to see what I've been up to. It has been quite a nice summer here in SE AK. I even grew some edible plants outside that the slugs didn't get!