I feel like I’ve come to the end of this particular poppy piece; “Large Poppies” and it is now ready for stretching onto a box canvas. The piece was painted on silk then machine embroidered using free machine technique basically “drawing” with the thread. There is a LOT of stitching! I especially enjoyed doing the centres with the satin stitch stamens and the little furry “tarantulas” covering the central seedheads.
Until very recently oriental poppies were flowering in my mother’s garden – in November! That seems a little crazy but I’m glad because I find them so inspiring, I can’t help but enjoy looking at them.
Looking at all my photos and drawings of poppies, I still feel like there is an awful lot of mileage to get out of them yet. I’ve recently completed 5 small poppy embroideries, some of which are on display at the Vicki Norman Studio Gallery in Bridgnorth along with some other pieces of mine.
However, I’d like to do some larger works doing really big closeups of the poppies, describing each stamen, the purple pollen, the strange and velvety starfish like centre, the way the light coming through the petals makes them luminous with hot pink and shocking orange next to deep red and almost black-purple splashes of colour. They would almost be like poppy portraits – exploring every millimetre of each flower and really getting to know it and describing its every nuance. Not that I’m obsessed or anything!
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Just Googled ‘Horned Poppies’ and wow, I would never have thought of putting flaming orange next to the glaucous blue/green of the foliage – Nature got it right, yet again!! I’ll watch for news of poppy portraits.
I just discovered your lovely inspired works via pictures of your hex-patchwork – what an exultation of colour . ‘Wild about poppies’ rang a little bell for me. How clever to capture the fragile crinkliness of the petals and the velvety centres. I have only the small, buttery yellow, wild Welsh poppies in my garden, but they are soooo pretty. I love your idea of poppy-portraits as each and every one deserves admiration. Last year I bought a pack of ‘culinary’ poppy seeds from a supermarket and scattered them in local hedgerows – quite a few germinated but they were small red wild ones.
…..In admiration…….
I love welsh poppies. They are lovely. Also, have you seen the horned poppy? They are very interesting and a bit different.
I’m also crazy abou toriental poppies which I had growing in my garden—such luxury!. But your work is amazing. Go for the shocking pink and orange together. Wonderful
Thank you Suzi! Yes I agree, pink and orange together are fab!
Your art is exquisite.
Thank you Annie! 🙂 I really appreciate your comment.