First Post!

So, this is the first floral piece I wanted to share.

I was sitting around at home one day when all my children where at school - when all of a sudden, an idea popped into my head. I wanted to paint some poppies. I love poppies, they are my my favourite flower (although my favourite flower changes weekly).
To start, I drew the outline of the poppies from a picture I saw in a book with a pencil. I then used a water-wash (with acrylic) to give myself an idea of the basic colours that I would use. I then gradually built up the colour an the canvas - the main colours I used were orange, red, green and black. I painted the poppies first, and completed the background later. Finally I added the shadows and highlight to the painting to make it look more realistic and less 2-dimensional.

I loved painting this because it involved using green, my favourite colour!

Please comment if you like this painting and feel free to criticize.