 Hello artistic friends, subscribers, and welcome to Monet Cafe. Today we're painting Sunflowers. Now let me let you know right away this is a speed version of this particular tutorial. The main version is on my Patreon page. I'll share about that in a minute. But thank you to Katrina, our moderator in our Facebook group, Monet Cafe Art Group, on Facebook. She gave me this beautiful sunflower photo and it's just a beautiful reference image to create this lovely painting. Now on the Patreon version and I'll share a link in a minute. I include things such as even picking out the actual pastel palette and other things. I'll share a snippet of that in a minute. But to become a patron it's only $5 a month. You can cancel it anytime and I give extra content to my patrons. Some behind-the-scenes studio tips, real-time video footage. However, I still never forget you guys here in Monet Cafe and often provide free real-time videos here as well. I just uploaded I think two of them in my past few videos. But the patrons do get a little something extra and it's really blessing me their support. Thank you patrons. All right let's share a little bit more about this painting. Before the speed version begins I thought I'd share with you. This was a wonderful rare time. I got to actually do commentary without just doing a voiceover. My house happened to be quiet and it was really nice just to talk during this painting creation. Now I share in this video how I'm using pastel matte. It's a surface that's awesome for getting pastel layers. I had not used it until oh just a few paintings ago and I actually shared how this painting I did right here. Literally I did a painting I didn't care for. I brushed it off and washed it with water. It made the pastel matte almost like new. Now here's another thing I often forget to share. I ruin a lot of my clothes because I forget. I have my very own Monet Cafe apron and they are awesome. Very good quality. They wash well. They have pockets. So oh and I'm also sharing my Monet Cafe designer series artist bracelet. We have the Monet, the Degas and the Van Gogh all coming out on March 1st. I'm going to share links everywhere on how you can get yours. They're really inexpensive and great quality. And stay tuned to the end of this video to find out about a chance how you can win one of these Monet Cafe artist series bracelets. There I'm just showing off my awesome tape dispenser. I got that on Amazon to use my artist tape with. It's so cool. This is where I was showing myself picking out the palette, going through the reasoning of my color choices and my values. Now one thing that was new for me and I actually learned from another artist in our Monet Cafe art group was that this pastel matte surface is great for doing a watercolor underpainting, which is what you see there. I basically used a white piece of the pastel matte. I usually don't like to use white pastel paper and I usually tone it with something. But I love using white surfaces when I do a watercolor underpainting and it worked great. So enjoy this. Again it's the speed version but it's not so fast that you can't analyze what I'm doing and learn from it. Again I share this all the time. I have learned so much as an artist just in watching other people paint. You know you can kind of learn the strategies and see the colors and the values used and now I actually prefer to watch a speed painting. But at the beginning I liked more commentary and more telling me what it is they were doing or what product they were using. So again for that if you'd like a little bit more it's on my Patreon page. There is a clickable link for my Patreon page at the end of this video and in the about section of this video. But also too if finances are an issue for you there is so much free content here on the Monet Cafe YouTube channel. I was excited the other day. I realized I actually hit 200 free videos. I had made my 200th video. I think it was day before yesterday and that was exciting to me and then oddly enough crazy awesome I hit my 200th patron on the same day. Now what's up with that? That's just too cool. So I am so blessed and so thankful for each and every one of you. Keep learning and growing. Make comments in the comment section of these videos. Feel free to share it. Please subscribe and I love to get back with you. I mean even though sometimes it might take me a little while to get back with you. I try to get back to all of your comments. So enjoy the video. Keep learning. Be blessed and stay tuned to the end for my announcement. This was truly a wonderful painting experience for me. It was just one of those times when I had the house to myself quiet and it was relaxing and peaceful and I kept it very free loose colorful and energetic and I wanted to announce that in the Monet Cafe designer series artist bracelets that I've been sharing I'm going to be doing a giveaway in my Patreon group in the first week of March. So to be eligible be sure you sign up to become a patron before March 1st 2020 which is just a couple days away from the making of this video. So hope you guys learned a lot. Come back often and as always happy painting.