Poppy #1

May 20th the local plein air group headed to Shreiner's Iris Gardens for a morning of painting. They have an outstanding display of flowers---Iris of course, but many, many others too! Lupines, peonies, & my personal favorites: dinner plate sized poppies! After scouting out the best poppies I settled in to paint one in particular. I have my own poppy plant I purchased from Shreiner's several years ago and it was blooming gloriously in our backyard these past 2 weeks also. Since I had so much fun painting their poppy I decided while ours was blooming I'd try to capture some more, resulting in 3 more 12x12" almost finished poppies! I knew I had to work quick since the bloom time was short, and sure enough once the temps rose into the 80's they immediately began to show signs of wear & tear. Photographs just don't do justice to the amazing reds of these particular poppies---they're always a bit too pink & not as rich as the poppies are in real life. Even major photoshopping can't capture the intense color! That was my painting goal---to put that red on canvas. It was really a fun challenge! Here's the first one I painted from Shreiner's poppy: I'll post the other 3 in the next few days.

This was my quick sketch on site at Shreiner's - to see any image closer you can right click & open in another window or tab.


Here's the first layer of pastel:


And the final painting: