Posy of poppies

very lovely

Beautiful depiction of this cheerful flower that is so prominent everywhere at this time of year. It is very well painted with lovely zingy reds fading out to pinker tones. Your grey/green foliage is perfect. The only little thing that strikes me is that the red border might be just a bit too much for a painting (fine for a card though) as it seems to detract from the red of the poppies. When I cover the border up, it seems to me to make the poppies stand out much more. Just a personal view of course - doesn't make me right.

Thank you so much for your encouragement Alain and Thea. Yes Thea I do see what you mean about the red border. It isn't actually part of the painting. I scanned the painting into the computer, and then using Photoshop I added a border by picking out one of the reds from the painting, so that I could print it out as a greetings card. It looks very effective as a card as you so rightly suggest. So I suppose I was just being lazy, and a bit rushed for time and uploaded this particular image because it was the right size for uploading . I should have re-sized and uploaded the original image without the red border. Good point Thea; thank you for the constructive criticism - I'll do it properly in future!

I like the way you have softened the outside petals, really makes the central poppies stand out.

Oh, wonderful. These are my favourite flowers, and you've captured their strength, beauty and delicacy.

Yes, I agree,really nice

Do you mind me asking what reds you used Jacki

Thank you everybody for your lovely comments - you are all very kind. Larry, I always struggle with reds because I try to use just Winsor & Newton transparent colours for my flowers and avoid the opaque ones. So I don't use Cadmium Red, which is difficult to replace. I think I used a mixture of Scarlet Lake and Quin Red with a little Crimson Alizarin added on the paper for the shadows (but not too much cos it dries really dull). However, the secret is to put down an "undercoat" of yellow (Winsor Yellow I think) on the central (in focus) flowers. Then when you lift out some of the red, you are left with a paler red rather than a pink! (It shows better in the original). I couldn't do this to the out of focus flowers, which is why they are showing pink at the edges. I haven't quite worked out how you would achieve a yellow undercoat for the loose, "bleeding" flowers unless you put it all over the paper, which wasn't what I wanted. So as you see, I do struggle with red, but I was pleased with the intensity of this one. Hope this makes sense.

Beautiful and eye cathing painting Jacki, vibrant colours

It's lovely Jacki and I think you have got the poppies just right.It really doesn't look as if you struggled at all as it so well done.You should be pleased.