Dancing in the Wind

Matilija Poppies are one of my favorites. I love painting them because I love painting their luminous paper-like petals and I love painting whites in sun and delicate shadow. This plein air day painting the poppies was particularly interesting because there were strong winds and the petals kept dancing about making strong shapes and moving non-stop. I ended up really loving the shapes in this painting from all the movement from the wind and it ended up being more beautiful if they were standing still.