Heritage Month Day 27

Sunday, September 27 – Sunflowers

Did you know … the sunflower – соняшник / sonyashnyk – is Ukraine’s national flower. It symbolizes hope, resilience and a deep connection to the land.

I’ve drawn many sunflowers on postcards to Defenders over these last few years. But always one. Recently, I heard about the Two-Sunflower Theory.

I don’t know where this so-called ‘theory’ comes from, or even whether there is evidence to support the idea, but the concept is really rather nice to consider.

When you give someone a sunflower, you should give them two.

During the day, each sunflower follows the sun, gaining warmth and strength through the day. At night, sunflowers turn to face each other, sharing their light and warmth with each other.

So today, I drew two sunflowers on my card. I hope they give off some extra light and warmth to a Defender.

But … I feel that I gave up too much writing space; maybe I could have made smaller ones?

What you need to draw your sunflower: postcard (I chose an autumn image); black gel pen; yellow, orange and brown markers or crayons or watercolour paint.

Step 1: draw part of a circle at a bottom corner or on one side; fill it in with cross lines.

Step 2: draw first row of florets ‘outward’ from the centre; I used round humps.

Step 3: fill in the florets with internal black rings.

Step 4: draw a row of large petals that have a bit of a point on them.

Step 5: draw a second row of smaller petals in between the larger petals.

Step 6: colour seeds centre brown.

Step 7: colour all of the petals yellow.

Step 8: add one or two orange strokes inside each petal; it’s okay if there is some white space.

Step 9: add some dimension/detail to each petal by drawing in some black outward moving lines; one, two or three, depending how much room you have.

Tomorrow … a crowd of supporters.

Each day through Ukrainian Heritage Month, we share an easy-to-do creative idea that you can try on your postcards to Defenders. 30 days. 30 cards. Simple art.

Our Ultimate Heritage Challenge to you, dear postcard warriors: one postcard per day during September. Try some of the postcard art ideas we offer through this month. Prizes will be drawn for three winners who have tried at least three different ideas that we’ve shared through the month of September. We’ll know because your cards will ‘show’ us.

Deadline: we must receive your Ukrainian Heritage Month challenge postcards in our mailbox by October 20.

Share your creative ideas with us, and any other ways in which you acknowledge Ukrainian Heritage Month.

Email your ideas and images to us along with a brief explanation and we’ll share: postcardstothefront.canada@gmail.com

Tag us on Instagram, Facebook, Threads. We’d love to share your stories with others. Don’t forget to tag the creators whose ideas you use.

IG and Threads: @postcardstothefront_canada   @ukrainian.heritage.month   

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