Up Close and Personal with Poppies

'Poppy Memories'            2.5 x 3.5            pastel              ©Karen Margulis

I love a good zoom lens. When I am taking pictures I love to zoom in and get up close and personal with my subject. I love cropping and isolating the subject. I love focusing on just one thing allowing everything else to become less important. I am  also drawn to these quiet intimate vignettes when I am painting.  I love painting the big view...the vista....that big field of poppies. But then I am drawn in to a more intimate look.  I want to study a single poppy or two. I want them to become the star of the painting. I zoom in and bring them close for a more personal painting.

These paintings help me paint the larger view. Studying one or two blooms up close gives me so much more information about the flower. What shape is it? What is the growing habit? What colors are they? What kind of foliage does it have...foliage colors? I get the answers to my questions when I am painting close up views.

Another way that I get up close and personal with poppies is to paint a series of mini paintings. I cut down some paper scraps to 2.5x3.5 inches which is the standard Artist Trading Card size. Not only do these minis help me understand poppies better, I can use them as studies for larger works. 

It also helps to learn more about the flowers I am painting. Take the Red Poppy for example. Did you know that the wildflower Red Poppy is also known as Shirley Poppy, Flanders Poppy and American Legion Poppy?  These red poppies can be pink and white and they are not the same as the large red orange Oriental Poppies and smaller Icelandic poppies we see in gardens.

The Red Poppy is best known for the large meadows of poppies in Central Europe. They have become permanently linked to World War I where the fields of poppies disappeared during the war due to the unrelenting battles. You may recall the famous poem by John McCrae 'In Flanders Fields' written as he gazed at the fresh graves of his fellow soldiers in the poppy fields.

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae

Written in Flanders on May 3, 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.