Asian-Inspired Poppy - Watercolor

Last night at watercolor class we once again had the chance to paint whatever we wanted.  For inspiration I used a landscape photo a friend of mine took while on one of her walks.  Unfortunately, I started out using too dark of paint where I shouldn't have, and the whole thing was pretty much a disaster from the start.  So I switched gears and worked from a painting I found on the internet.  It was a very simple and loose composition of poppies in just two colors, red and black.  It had an Asian or Japanese feel to it and looks as if it were done using sumi-e ink.

My painting had more foliage in shades of gray and black and another poppy to the right that I didn't like at all, so when I got home I cropped it out!  (Ah, the advantages of having a variety of craft-related tools at my disposal.)  I added a few splatters of black paint and little squiggles to the large poppy using a fine-tipped black Sharpie, and ended up with this 3x6 inch painting that I mounted on red cardstock.  It may eventually become the front of a greeting card, if I can bear to part with it.  Right now I'm enjoying it too much myself.

I can't believe it's October already!  Thanks for dropping by and have a great day.

Supplies:
Strathmore 140 lb watercolor paper; Schmincke Horadam watercolor paints; red cardstock by Bazzill; fine-tipped black Sharpie; long narrow rectangle Nestabilities by Spellbinders.