Instead of painting en plein air or from a photograph, “Tour de Sunflowers” is an example of a project that combined a variety of different concepts as part of an evolutionary process.
Tour de Sunflowers 25″ x 85″ Acrylic on Canvas
Katherine wanted a very large painting for her birthday to fill the length of a wall in her bedroom. The walls in her room are a deep blue, so the painting would blend into the background color of her bedroom.
The project began with her desire to have the painting be a loosely painted group of cyclists similar to this painting (above) by Michael Lee, which Katherine shared with me.
She also liked this painting (above) by Rob Ijbema.
We were working on the painting in the month of July, when the Tour de France was in full swing. It is hard not to think of the Tour without also thinking of the gorgeous sunflower fields in France. Katherine loves sunflowers, as well as cycling. She decided that she wanted to also incorporate a sunflower field. She found this painting by Danny Byl (above) as an example.
Katherine finally decided that she wanted a large field of sunflowers as shown above in a photo she collected. She wanted the field overflowing with sunflowers. But she also wanted cyclists, similar to the Rob Ijbema painting.
Then, she wanted to change the sky to something similar to the photo (above).
When deciding how to incorporate the cyclists, I first put some generic cyclists in the painting. As a surprise, I added Katherine (leading the group) into the painting from a cycling photo I had of her (below left).
We also thought it would be fun to put the 2011 MS Breakaway to the Beach jersey on one of the cyclists. Upon further contemplation, we decided to make our friend, Jeff, (above right) wearing the Breakaway jersey as the second cyclist. So we looked up the color of his helmet and bike and I painted him into the painting.
Lastly, she wanted to add her father, Ragan, into the painting, wearing the red Bicycle Toy and Hobby jersey. Ragan was kind enough to pose in the jersey for the painting 
(above left). The cyclist on the left is unknown, for now .
The painting took about two weeks from start to finish. “Tour de Sunflowers” is now hanging on the wall in Katherine’s bedroom!
Happy Birthday, Katherine!
