Exploring pointillism (and why does the word look so strange???)

On Thursday, September 25th, I went to Stella Niagara for a painting class. It was a beautiful day, and it would have been a good day to paint outside but the lesson had been planned in advance. So the group of painters headed over to the sewing room in the Sisters' residence. This is the first time that we've painted there. All other space in the Center for Renewal had been booked by a large group that was doing some sort of leadership training for women. Apparently, the leadership training was for women who would have been voted least likely to be leaders when they were in high school. That would be me, I pointed out to someone who was taking registration forms. She invited me to join them. But... I was there to paint...
So paint I did.
We were a small group. Virginia brought pictures of sunflowers and a basket of artificial sunflowers.
We recited our painters prayer:
Persistence to stay with the task at hand
Patience to give ourselves time to grow
Acceptance of where we are as artists today
Inspiration in all we see around us
Thankfulness that we are here.......
The sun was shining outside, the apple trees were full of apples.
The world seemed golden and vibrant, on the verge of changing colors.
So we set to work painting portraits of sunflowers.
I was determined to do a different type of sunflower portrait than the one that I completed last year. Last year's painting was colorful and bright and cheerful.
This year's painting would be colorful and bright and cheerful, too, but a little more abstract.
I used a technique that I learned in Earnest Ward's online workshop at Strathmore Online Workshops. Pointillism. It involves making lots and lots of dots. It can be a drawing or a painting technique.
Here, I used it as a painting technique.

I used dots to show the change of color within the centers of the sunflowers. If you haven't tried pointillism, I recommend this technique. I have found painting lots and lots of dots to be very relaxing!