Poppies were my first painting, when I discovered a new level of myself as an artist.
I was focused on research of the darker sides of plants and obviously could not miss the opium Poppy. My eye caught a photograph of young girls sleeping after smoking drugs. I told myself ... the way they look is so wrong - they looked like they had broken necks which, to me, equated to broken blossoms
At this point I started to play with associations and metaphors about how I imagine broken blossoms and what I feel about them.
I came up with the drawings and a first red and white sketch made in Photoshop. I was not satisfied with how the painting looked on canvas for three reasons: the colour did not work; the composition was week; and the most important element of painting was missing – the source of light.
It is easy to paint from a photograph, but when it comes to painting from your imagination it seems absolutely impossible to guess how the shadows will appear.
It is very important not to be lazy at this stage, so I decided to create a 3D model of my poppy buds in Maya, with 3 spot lighting. It took a while, taking into account that I did not knew the program, but the result was worth the effort.
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