Sunflower Paint & Sip

with Sue Whitehead

Friday 8th August 2025

In a new initiative the Chairman, Sue Whitehead, offered to lead a paint along session based on her painting ‘Sunflowers’. To give enough time to complete a painting the meeting started early at 6.30pm and members were invited to bring along something to drink and nibbles if they wanted. Glasses were provided. The idea was to give everyone a chance to relax and socialise. For those who wanted to work independently there was a separate still life of sunflowers. At the same time, any members who wanted to continue with their own projects that was also an option.

The Paint-Along option was very popular as can be seen by all those who set up ready with their paints and paper or canvas. To start it was a matter of drawing the outline of the sunflowers to position them on the page or canvas. Sue was going to be demonstrating with acrylic paints and she offered some spare acrylic paints for anyone who did not have their own.

Sue Whitehead had suggesting using a small canvas in order to be able to paint the picture in the time available. Her canvas was 40 cm x 40 cm. Using a mixture of Cobalt Blue and Titanium White she painted a graduated wash over her drawing and the whole canvas. To paint the clouds she used a large round brush and a light blue mix from her palette and highlighted with Titanium White.

The next stage was to paint the flower. To start with the petals were painted with a base coat of Titanium White and then they were given two coats of Raw Sienna. The centre of the flowers were painted with Burnt Sienna.

The sides and centre of the flower were detailed in Mars Black and details added for the seed head. Cadmium Yellow as then used to highlight the lightest areas of the sunflowers and Raw Umber was used to paint the shadows on the flower heads. Lemon Yellow was finally added to highlight the brightest areas of the petals and Cadmium Yellow and Lemon Yellow was dotted on the centre of the flowers.

In the meantime in another section of the room a group of people were drawing or painting a large still life of sunflowers in a very appropriate vase. Somewhat reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh!

It was almost difficult to draw everyone away from their paintings in order to enjoy socialising a little together with a glass of whatever drink they had brought. It was also equally hard to get everyone back to their seats so that Sue Whitehead could finish her paint-along. It was time to paint the leaves using Hookers Green and Sap Green and once again the highlights were added using Lemon Yellow and Titanium White.

There was clear enthusiasm to participate in this event and the room was almost full to capacity. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and Liz Seward, the President, spoke for everyone when she thanked Sue Whitehead for devising such a popular occasion and for leading the Paint Along with clear instruction over the course of the evening.