This painting was inspired by my garden sunflowers. Over the years I have planted different varieties of sunflowers, and I love painting these large blooms that are full of sunshine and freshness. The goal was to create a hot, red background for the bouquet of flowers. This bouquet includes some warm, red gladioli to contrast with the yellow flowers. I find it a challenge to paint in this size, which is a little confining to describe these wonderful flowers. Most of the pigments I used were warm reds, scarlet lake, pyrrole red, magenta with gamboge and aureolin (yellow).