Apple-Pine: Matilija Poppy

Showing posts with label Matilija Poppy. Show all posts

Matilija Poppies are in Season!

Matilija poppies are a signature plant native to California and are a joy to find and draw. Also a bit of a challenge. Sometimes they are so tall that there is no way to see the actual center of the flower. The best bushes are usually on a highway or in the middle of the road or right under the construction crane! This is why when someone finds a good bush to draw and shares it with you it is a gift worth an immediate drive! (though I had other selfish reasons too). These sketches are from the outing to see @suhitasketch and her patch of poppies. It was such a gift to spend some time drawing these dancing flowers!

Here is a look at Matilija Poppies which I drew through the years.

First sketch below is done without any lines or underdrawing - a direct gouache/watercolor sketch. Second one is done with printmaking tools and third one is ink and watercolor/gouache wash. Which one speaks to you more? Scroll to see process shots!

Last Matilija Poppies of the Season

Before the end of the Matilija poppy season, one more bike ride was taken to the special spot where people are friendly to my spreading art supplies all over the walkway and poppies are growing in a way so that I can see them from all angles. These are very tall plants if you let them grow and often by the end of the season I need a ladder to see them from above yet in this place there are always some plants low enough for me to draw even while sitting (which is a given with the A3 sketchbook im working in now).

More Matilija Poppies

These native California flowers (with an unfortunate common name of fried egg flowers:) are still greeting me by the road sides. I had all intentions to do a proper negative painting in one of these but ended up slipping into finger painting and decided to leave it as is.

New Sketchbook - Number 150!

I wanted to do something big for the nice round number of 150 - after all, it comes only once! (just like 149 and 151 ;) But the truth is I wanted to do some larger works this summer, and choosing an A3 sketchbook was a simple way of making sure that I would stick to my plan.

A3 means it is at least twice larger than my usual sketchbook. A3 means that my backpack does not close so when I bend down sketchbook hits me on the head. A3 means that wind can get the book out of my hands. It also means some giant pain in terms of sharing images - scanning this beast takes both time and skill. There is quite a bit of cursing while I work in this sketchbook because everything is different at this scale and sometimes I want to just paint and draw and not solve a new puzzle. But I am enjoying the ride (most of the time :)

Here is the result of the very first outing with the sketchbook #150: Matilija Poppies are such an amazing subject to struggle with!

btw: I filled another A3 sketchbook almost exactly three years ago and finally made a little video of all the pages. Here is a post about it - with a link to the video.