February - Panoramic Poppy Painting

I wanted to do a painting that was a daily reminder of the sacrifices that were made to give us the freedom we have today. I've done other things related to "Remembrance" before, including music/song and a Remembrance version of the "Remember, Remember..." poem, but I hadn't thought of a way to get the emotions across that I wanted to. 

One day, when I wasn't really thinking about it, I suddenly got this idea and sketched it in a panoramic sketchbook for me to put onto canvas later on. The plan was to have a panoramic canvas to suggest the vastness of the battlefields; a "river" of poppies to suggest the huge number of fallen soldiers, with some more detailed poppies at the front; and a lone soldier, kneeling in memory of his comrades. I decided to do the poppies in full colour but the rest of the landscape in grayscale to create a very dramatic image. This is the end result which I am really pleased with.

In case any of you are interested, here's how I did it.

I started by drawing the big poppies at the front and then sketched out the horizon and "river" of poppies.

  
I then used Inktense pencils to do the big poppies (petals and stems) and let them dry before doing the "river" of poppies and the black centres of the big poppies..

 

While the poppies were drying, I used drawing ink to create a fairly dark sky. I wanted it to suggest dusk or sunset, which I think it does in the finished painting.

My initial plan was to have the land very foggy with only the poppies and the soldier being clearly visible but when I tried to do this, the ink dried looking really "blotchy" so I put another layer of ink on and tried to keep it as even as possible. While this left the land looking quite flat, the idea was to have the focus on the poppies so I think this is ok. Once everything was dry, I used some darker drawing ink for the soldier.

Overall, I'm really pleased with this painting. I think if tried this again, then I would have the big poppies fill more of the canvas, and I'd maybe make the soldier a bit bigger. However, I like that the emptiness of the landscape gives a feeling of isolation, as I think many of the soldiers may have felt this way upon returning  from the battlefields to civilian life - as their families back home probably wouldn't have understood how they were feeling.

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions or opinions to share on this topic...