poppies

Poppies 2017

I’ve been playing with various poppy designs for about three years now, and I am in the habit of making a batch of poppy images around the time of Remembrance Day in the UK. As well as a piece of remembrance art, these pieces also speak to me of the blood and tears of war. This year I’ve decided to offer the poppies for sale, and donate some of the proceeds to the Royal British Legion poppy appeal.

Each artwork is painted using Winsor and Newton professional water colours on Aquarelle Arches satin grain 300g/m2 hot pressed 100% cotton paper. Each piece is 10cm x 25cm and will be signed then mounted using 100% acid free tape into conservation grade mount board. I’m selling these for £45 plus £5 P&P each, with a donation of £10 for every sale. The second and sixth in the series have already been sold. Number three has been given away as a free art drop and I destroyed number five, it just didn’t work! Contact me if you’d like to buy one of the remaining artworks, and in so doing, help support a good cause.

Poppies 2017 : Work In Progress.

Poppies are a design I enjoy painting, and with time for remembrance approaching, I’ve started to think about interpretations for this year. What I am sharing here is very much work in progress. I’m not yet sure if I’ll continue down this path, but part of the ‘deal’ with this blog is I often share my work as I go – so here’s where I’m currently at. These are made with spray paint, stencil and acrylic. The spray paint I am using is scarily unpredictable, from dribbles to full on paint explosions. I quite like the randomness…I think!?

Two quick sketches made as I practiced with wet on wet painting.

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.