Another poppy painting. I am enjoying the big fat buds and the funny little pseudo leaves that grow on the flower stems. This painting looks less graphic than the last one. I use a painting style developed before the Renaissance of shading a figure darker the further away it is. Usually this makes the outside edge the darkest part as though a black line is drawn around the object, as in the previous poppy painting. This new painting looks different because the open flower is concave, not convex, so the furthest point, and consequently the darkest point, is the interior of the flower. Fun, eh? The buds retain the dark outer edge because they are spheres.
I enjoyed comparing my work to William Morris' in a previous post. Let's look at another poppy painter - Georgia O'Keefe. Her work is hugely popular and some of her pieces were seen as shockingly sexual in their day. (pistils and stamens etc up close) Perhaps because of her influence or because we are so familiar with her work now, it looks rather unshocking. But still beautiful. She painted flowers larger than life, encouraging people to take time to see what they might otherwise overlook. I have a quotation from her on my wall "Nobody sees a flower really - it is so small - we haven't time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time"
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