Our July Instant Garden Introduction: Sunshine of My Life

At this point in the summer, our tables and windowsills are consistently dotted with garden-clipped bouquets. And is there anything that says “summer” more than a big bunch of sunflowers? I guess a few things maybe, but sunflowers are right up there. And these stalks of sunshine have long provided inspiration for artists, most notably, Vincent Van Gogh. He became known for his sunflowers after painting a large series of them in Arles, in the south of France, in the late 1880s. Van Gogh suggested to an artist friend that sunflowers could be “his” flower. I love this:

“It is a kind of painting that rather changes in character, and takes on a richness the longer you look at it. Besides, you know, Gauguin likes them extraordinarily. He said to me among other things – ‘That... it’s... the flower.’ You know that the peony is Jeannin’s, the hollyhock belongs to Quost, but the sunflower is somewhat my own.”

I hadn’t realized this the last time we introduced our Sunflower Power illustration as a digital stamp, when I shared several favorite Van Gogh Sunflower paintings, which have long been an inspiration to me as a painter. He painted them over and over and over, attempting to truly master the changes in color. He used the new discoveries in pigment development to create new shades of yellow (thus leading to new shades of orange!) and was able to capture variances in the flowers that are captivating.

I encourage you to do a bit of research on Van Gogh’s Sunflower series for the fun of it. A wonderful resource is right on Wikipedia, they have their own page, click here, where you can see the paintings and read all about what was happening with Van Gogh and Gauguin at the time they were painting them.

Another quote that strikes me:

“Now that I hope to live with Gauguin in a studio of our own, I want to make decorations for the studio. Nothing but big flowers.”

Taking inspiration from the pure saturation of flowers and the Van Gogh attitude, I’d like to introduce you to our newest digital stamp introduction, Sunshine of My Life:

This digital stamp set includes one large main image and two sentiments, and is ready to be downloaded and printed in an instant, so you can get right to coloring.

A quick note for clear stamp lovers. If you like this Sunshine of My Life image, you may be interested in our next clear stamp release in August. Just sayin’!

Today we are SO FORTUNATE to have a giant team of BOTH teams to help showcase our new digital set, the Instant Gardeners and the Bloom Brigade are out in force! There are a few other fun digital sets sprinkled in, too, so be sure to stop by everyone’s blogs to see what glorious and colorful imagery they are providing....

Barb Walker
Debbie Olson
Nancy Sheads
Cheryl Scrivens
 Broni Holcombe 
Stacy Morgan
Cindy Lawrence
 Allison Cope 
Tosha Leyendekker (two cards today!)
 Christine Okken 
Kathy Jones

I hope you find this an inspiring part of your Friday! We are so happy you came by the Power Poppy Blog to see what’s new. Have a great weekend, everyone.