Black and White
A Sunflower Sweetness is happening as a honey bee hovers in the face of the sunflower blossom. I see so many bees in love with the sunflowers in the garden. I don’t know what attracts them so much. Is it their large size or the many pollen-loaded seeds of the flowers attracting them? I don’t know. If you go sit in a patch of sunflowers you would be amazed at the sound of buzzing that accompanies you. These bright flowers always promote happiness to me. I have been transforming my finished work into black and white (above) to see if the values are right.
Large Area Wash
This painting comes from the good luck of being able to get a picture of the honey bee hovering right in front of me. You can see that I drew the shapes from a reference photograph and chose to paint the area behind in brown reserving where the petal areas will be. Knowing their boundaries makes it easier for me to work on painting each petal later.
You can see the yellow petals painted carefully with lemon yellow and reserved light areas. While still wet, I drop in a mixture of orange, alizarin crimson, and cerulean blue if needed for shadow. It is a fun way to get the paint to do the work. I can always use a dried brush tip to lift off any excess paint in the wet area. The leaves in the background on the left are painted the same way.
The final steps are mostly darkening with layer after layer of glazes. This painting required patience and many careful strokes. The details of the honey bee were some of the last details. It was challenging to figure out a way to have him show because his dark colors are similar to the blossom center darks. I finally tried a touch of medium cadmium in his face and body which helped to get that division needed.
Sunflowers Brown & Yellow 04 nearing completion. This is where we begin to add some really dark areas and things begin to pop.
The two sunflowers on the left are the darker brown variety named, “
Sunflowers Yellow & Brown tutorial 03. The petals are all started with a good yellow and orange wash. Now, the center of the blossom can begin with shapes that render where all the seeds are developing. This area on the blossom is an area where I have to simplify what I see and stay away from trying to render every single detail.
You can see how the introduction of green strokes and puddles of paint create a rich dark hue in the background.
The seed centers are darkened and finished in more detail. The petals close to the center are darkened also and the shadows that are cast on the different petal shapes are added. Adding more of the green foliage in the background helps to separate the main characters even more.
The addition of some purple alongside of the greens makes even darker shapes behind the blossoms.
Sunflowers Yellow & Brown 02 tutorial. I have put a light uneven red background wash using Alizaron Crimson. When I add greens later on, the red and green mixing will make a rich and solid darkness. I do not intend to put many details in the background because I want to concentrate on the flowers upfront.
Painting Sunflowers in Yellow & Brown tutorial. We are fortunate to have an abundance of all different kinds and colors of sunflowers in our garden each year. This artist takes many photographs that inspire rendering their beautiful colors and surfaces.
See how much variation in value exists in sunflowers for each and every petal and the centers of the blossoms. This painting is a real practice in getting good gradations in the watercolor wash. Each petal goes from real dark to really light on the tips. They are not only yellow in color set a full pallet of paint up for this project. The blue-gray dots seen in the middle are watercolor resist (mastik) reserving white areas for better details later on.
Finishing
We greatly darken the entire background and add more foliage shapes randomly. A really good and dark mixture to use is crimson with hookers green, it is my favorite black. Kind of a powerful black with a heck of a punch. Once you use this mixture you will be spoiled for life and never even open a tube of black again. More red will make it reddish, and more green makes it greenish.
With a sufficiently darkened background, we can now focus on the final details of Mr. Dragonfly and his sunflower.
Notice, the row of slight touches of acrylic white paint added to the dragonfly wing where highlights occur. A thinner mix is applied at each of these clear parts of his wing, which allows the underpainting to still show through. I only apply this where I notice shine and glimmer appearing. 
It becomes a game of applying, re-applying, and then softening edges with a clean wet brush until you get exactly what you want. You can get amazing soft hints of light by applying a weak mix of white or black to the previously painted surfaces.
Proceeding on, this wash fills the stem and leaves surrounding the sunflower.
Before this wash dries I apply drops of hookers green and either lemon yellow to the leaves along with tiny touches of ultramarine blue for those deeper shadows. The water spreads these colors together for me. All during this process, you may think that the colors are too bright but remember that they grow pale as they dry.
Remember in the previous tutorial, where I mentioned that watercolors tend to get paler when they dry? These last two photographs show a good example of that.
Adding ultramarine blue and even purple accentuates how deep this crevasse is. 
The yellow petals are brightened with more opaque yellow washes over some of the areas. Also, reds are added to encircle the flower bud where the petals are anchored. Crimson or cerulean blue are then added to various petals to show where they is shadow. 
Whenever I paint flowers with all of their curving bright surfaces, it amazes me how many surfaces you discover. Soft arms reaching out and then curving back under another. Do you see a more solid blossom in the illustration now?
Beginning with the sunflower petals, I want to carefully preserve how there are light gleams intermingled when the petals are viewed through the dragonfly wings. Notice the small areas of color showing through the wings where we are going to preserve sharp edges to emphasize this phenomenon.
After the initial Azo Nickle yellow base wash is applied, I can apply the smallest amounts of light cadmium or alizarin crimson and allow it to spread to give shadow and shape to the petals. In the wings, I purposely keep the values paler.
The Dragonfly in the Sun 01, this tutorial had a really neat start. My husband came in from the garden laying a perfect little dragonfly on my desk. An absolutely perfect specimen of a critter that I had never seen so up close and personal.
It begins with a sketch of the layout. Then I slowly add an alizarin crimson background wash. You can see my photo reference in the front on the left. My messy pallet up above and the water and brushes on the right along with paper towels. I try to remember to start the wash on the left and work to the right so I am not resting my palm on the wet surfaces as I work.
See how you can see the main images show better as the background becomes separated from the foreground.
Notice how the wet parts seem so much darker than the parts that are partially or fully dry on the left. When working with watercolor it is truly amazing to see how much paler the pigments are when they dry, it forces you to try bolder amounts of pigment as you paint. Scary but great fun when you finally try it out.