Poppy Painting

Ive done several of these acrylic and wax paintings over the past few years and all have sold except Poppy Quartet 6 (above) ---the huge 4 canvas art work -each 16in x 20in and a large 36in x 36in one. The Poppy Quartet has been hanging in our front room for a little while now--while Ive been deciding what else to do to it..its never looked quite finished! Anyway after  a lovely morning out at the local boot sale on Sunday I came home and suddenly got the urge to take some photos of it...couldn't put my finger on why--even Bill asked why I was taking pics of it!  Then yesterday I had a phone call from a lady who explained that her son Martyn had bought a version of Poppy Quartet from me over 3 years ago.--I remembered Martyn and had thought about him only the previous day when taking the photos--Martyn had contacted me from Iraq-he is in the forces and he commissioned the art as a remembrance for his fellow soldiers who had died out there.Anyway Martyn no longer had the art-he has parted from his girlfriend and she kept the painting. So his mum wanted to replace it for him as he really loved it and what it represented..so she had spent the day tracking me down---and all she could remember was my name was Diane....she must have been sending out some really strong vibes when she was looking cos I picked them up! Its to be a present for his 30th birthday--wish I was able to see his face when he opens it!

the first change I made after discussing it with Penny was to make the black centre bigger so I could increase the size of the melted wax centre as well.So I used several glazes of black paint  to do so....

you can see the texture quite good in this photo..

once the paint was dry I was able to get on and do the melted wax part...back breaking stuff as it involves leaning over the canvas and dripping the wax onto it...cant be done at the easel!

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I made the stamens longer with 2 shades of silver melted wax and added load more texture using the drips of wax...

I'm really pleased with the end result...and Ive emailed each step to Martyn's Mum as Ive done it and she loves it as well...

Its worked out really well--I also did some alterations to the 36in x 36in one while I had the wax out..they will both be varnished tomorrow and again on Thursday to protect the wax and the paint....