How to paint a still life with dried poppies

Hang on Studio Wall

Equipment

Mi-Teintes A3 grey pastel paper

Liquitex acrylic inks

Daler-Rowney FW ink

Tom Norton walnut drawing ink

Faber-Castell pastels

Reeves gouache

Sennelier oil bars

Colours

Yellow orange azo

Red oxide

Burnt sienna

Black

White

Yellow ochre

Rose

Seedheads in mixed media

Dried Poppies

Alan Bickley demonstrates a still life of dried poppy seedheads in mixed media.

It isn’t often that I get around to painting a still life - I’m usually absorbed in the studio with my oil paints working on landscapes and nautical themes in the main, so it was a welcome diversion to have a go at a simple set up of dried poppies.

Reference material

You can of course work from online reference material, and if that’s your only option then it’s quite acceptable providing that you are using royalty-free images.

There are thousands of images of dried poppies online, but do you really want to paint a still life from a photograph?

I much prefer to work from life, and as it was a gloriously warm and sunny early June morning this year, I took my drawing board and a couple of sheets of A3 grey pastel paper, inks, brushes etc, and my all-important ‘props’ - those of course being the gorgeous dried poppies, outside and onto the patio table.

Setting up a still life

I positioned the dried poppies in the shade under a large cream canvas parasol. The dried poppies were sourced online, not cheap but I can plant the seeds afterwards in a designated area of ‘wild garden’ that I have set aside for wildlife.

Dried poppies in bag of flour… you often have to come up with innovative ideas to solve problems - this old bag of flour came in useful for holding the poppies in a set arrangement.

I tried arranging the poppies in a jar, with no luck, so I cut down the stems and stuck them into a bag of out-of-date flour that I found lurking in the back of a cupboard. That solved the problem, and it stopped them moving around in the very welcome light early morning breeze.

I find the shape and colours of dried poppies such a great subject to work from, their bowl shape does differ significantly between each poppy, and those random dark spots add interest.

This is a 5-stage WIP, and I decided to keep the text fairly brief, letting the image from each stage do the talking! I believe that this is often by far the easiest and best way to follow a demonstration. Too much text can sometimes complicate matters.

If you are giving this simple still life a go for yourself, I suggest that you use my examples as a reference point only, and just let your artistic skills and inspiration take over!

Materials used

I used an assortment of medium on this still life, not quite all that are on show here, but all the materials that I’ve put on display here would work well!

Liquitex acylic inks:

Yellow orange azo
Red oxide
Transparent burnt sienna

Daler-Rowney FW ink:

Black

Reeves Gouache:

White
Yellow ochre
Rose

Sennelier or R&F oil bars:

Various colours used for very small areas

Faber-Castell pastels and pastel pencils:

Various colours

Top tips before you begin

I worked on an A3 sheet of mid-grey pastel paper, although the artwork itself is marginally smaller - I much prefer to work on a decent size piece of paper, I can’t see the point of being cramped for space, and you can test out your colours around the border if you wish.
I decided to keep the finished painting fairly loose, so using the wet-in-wet technique as a starting point, along with large brushes, seemed to be the best way forward - we all know that this technique can often be a bit hit-and-miss as to where the paint will flow, but you can control things to some extent. Anyway, it all helps to add a bit of excitement to the situation.
I never, or rarely, draw anything out with pencil first, it inhibits the spontaneity that I’m after, but if that helps, then it’s fine to draw out your image first. If you do feel the need to use a pencil, make sure that It’s a soft grade such as a B or 2B, and leave the pencil lines in situ to show through on the finished piece - they are part and parcel of it and should stay in! No erasers please, unless you are removing unwanted marks from the paper!

Demonstration: Dried Poppies

Starting with ink

With a large round synthetic brush, plunge straight in with the inks on a randomly wetted surface, loosely drawing out the shapes but not in a precise manner… let the paint, or ink in this case, just run its own course, we don’t want a tight and static finished piece.

You're not necessarily striving to achieve exact colour matches in this piece, although of course you could - try to be expressive in both your colour choices and approach - the poppies are there simply to give the shapes and markings.

I’m not looking for a photographic image, I can never see the point in that!

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Top Tip

Splashes and so on are par for the course so embrace them, and use them to your advantage!

Creating the shapes

While this first stage is still reasonably wet, introduce further but stronger washes of colour, establishing and reinforcing the general shape of the poppy heads with a No 3 synthetic round brush.

Leave to dry completely.

Establishing the darks and lights

As in the previous stage, apply some darker tones to the poppies and background and, with a No 1 synthetic rigger brush, draw in a few more precise shapes.

Apply a touch of gouache to indicate highlights.

At this stage it is starting to all come together as planned.

Establish the seedheads

Start to establish the poppy heads more prominently, this time using a combination of mediums, but using each quite sparingly.

The mediums used included oil bars, gouache and soft pastel.

With a rigger, make the outlines of some of the poppies more prominent with off-white gouache, but not too prominent or tight!

Finishing touches

I felt the painting needed a lift, so I beefed up the background with acrylic ink, applying some bold and transparent glazes over much of the work.

Finally, I spattered a few spots of dark ink over the poppies and I’ve digitally cropped away some of the surplus border.

In conclusion

You will have noticed that I’ve kept a few of the poppies at the top of the composition less worked and without detail, and therefore less prominent - this was intentional! Too many crisply defined edges and finished detail can be a touch overbearing, it isn’t necessary!

If you decide to give this simple still life a go, as I’ve said earlier, just use my stages as a guide and do your own thing! Don’t attempt to slavishly copy my examples, it just doesn’t work.