Red poppies on black
I started this one a couple of months ago. It is in oil pastel and I wanted to see if I could portray poppies in oil pastel. I love painting them in soft pastel and I have also painted them in watercolour and acrylic. This is from one of my own photographs of poppies in my garden here in France. I let them self seed every year and as I don't do much weeding they reward me with a wonderful show every year.
30x40 cm, oil pastel on Somerset Velvet paper.
The blue stands out a little too much in the photo, although I have reduced it in photshop. It's difficult photographing art work on black paper, if anyone knows of any good tips on how to do it, please let me know. The paper is a lovely paper to work on. It is a printing paper and works well for soft pastel as well as for oil pastels. It has a soft 'springy' surface and takes a lot of wear and tear.
Orange Glory
This is the second one I finished. It is a rework of a failed watercolour painting.
30X40cm oil pastels on watercolour paper.
This is also from one of my own photos but from my English garden taken about 5 years ago.
I learnt a lot about oil pastels with this painting. I was having trouble with it and thought I had spoilt it completely. But because I left it alone for a while, when I came back to it I was able to over work it with quite a few more layers and even completely change the shape of the bottom poppy.
I'd be interested in your opinions on these as I quite like the way the turned out although I did wonder if oil pastels was too heavy a medium for the subject.
I had fun creating some art gifts on zazzle
