I Painted A Poppy Flower From Birth To Death In Watercolor

I started painting beautiful flowers 6 years ago using watercolor. My realistic paintings don’t raise discussion on worldviews, woman’s rights, or the climate... If they are about anything, it is in celebration of nature and natural beauty, which quite frankly just blows my mind!

By taking away the background and having a single red flower suspended, drifting in white space, it really brings the color, shape, and the play between light and shadows to the foreground without the distractions of what normally accompanies a growing plant.

This way everything quietens down and a single, dramatic focus is the result.

This series of realistic artworks I did “A Brilliant Life” follows the Poppy flower from birth to death, a somewhat gloomy theme I know.

The potential of the bud, the perfect colorful flower, the loss of beauty, and then the stillness of the final watercolor painting was so interesting to document. It seems rather like the human life cycle I guess now that I write that description of these realistic drawings.

It took me 18 months to complete the 6 watercolor drawings and about 2 months to paint each one.

I have included some “in process” pictures to show the painting techniques I use as so often people comment on them being “great photos” and don’t believe me when I tell them they are paintings.

More info: deniseramsay.com