These two sketches came about as I practiced with mixing wet paint on wet paper, and wet paint on dry paper. To start, I took a big brush and painted a broad line of water across the top of the page before adding the flower heads. The flower stalks were put on after the paper was dry.
In this first example I made the top of the page too wet, so that when I added the red/white mixture and the dark spot – things diffused too much. You can really see this on the left and right flower heads. With the two in the middle, I subsequently added a little more detail as the paper dried. I like the effect I got by going back and adding something as the paper dried.
In this second example – I used less water to start which made it easier to get the softer effect of poppy petals.