Poppy Patch

This is the painting that I started as a demonstration for a senior's group. I worked out the composition ahead of time and outlined the poppies so that I would have time to do a bit of actual painting. Thirty or forty minutes is not long for a painting! They all thought it looked like a bit of a mess to start with. Then I painted a loose green "wash" over everything that was not a poppy head and they were surprised to see the poppy shapes jump out. I got a little bit of "beginning" pinks and reds in and a little variation in the greens before we ran out of time. I promised I would post the finished painting on my blog. Alas! the blog has been neglected and not much was done on this painting. I haven't been all together idle - there were two figure-painting weekends and some weeding and tidying in the garden. However, I have now finished it. This is the third painting inspired by the poppies in the community garden kitty-corner from Choices on 57th. "Poppies by the Fence" was the first (and I used that for a Christmas card) and then there is one just called "Poppies" which is California yellow-orange poppies and now this one. Maybe more yet. They are nice to paint because the planting is quite random. I don't grow any in my garden as they wouldn't really fit with my other plantings. Somehow, that makes it all the easier to appreciate them elsewhere. I worked from my own photographs but did a bit of rearranging. A few years ago I had fun with extreme close-ups of flowers but right now I'm enjoying the "pattern" effect of a group of flower heads. We'll see what the next inspiration is!