Sunny Bee

"A photo of a sunflower lit by the morning sun demanded to become a piece of art, so I chose to create this one on scratchboard. My personal challenge was to create the same dramatic lighting effect as captured in my color reference photo, but only with black, white, and grey values made by scratching the black surfaced panel.

The tiny hairy fibers on all but the flower's petals were ideal for my scratching techniques, and add so much to the realism. When the black background seemed to overpower the flower, I decided to add a honey bee, as they are valued and welcome visitors to my gardens of flowering perennials, herbs, berries, and fruit. The minute details of the bee lead me to use the finest scratching tool I could come up with - a hand-sewing needle!"