Poinsettia

I did not immediately see myself doing this challenge, as I could not get my head around finding inspiration for a still life from packaging colours. When I saw some of the fabulous work done by others for this challenge, I found myself even less able to do anything.


I couldn't think of anything when I looked in my pantry. I found an ad for pasta in a magazine, but had no ideas for a still life.

Then by serendipity I was taking down my Christmas cards and found this painting by Donald Hamilton Fraser which had exactly the right colours and was a still life!

I free cut the poinsettia (yes, that's right, I did NOT make a freezer paper template - a first!).

One thing I found really interesting, studying the painting, was how to use different colours of thread which I would not normally use. For example orange on the green leaves, and a bright pink on the lighter edge of petals (bracts). Maybe I will get braver about colour choice, but I reckon it will be slowly!




I have not faced this, as I am thinking about matting and framing it.

I really like the various reds with the charcoal and beige. So not my normal colours.

I was not sure why the painter had such a lighter block of colour on the right, but I needed it for the cream of the pasta, so I was quite happy to copy that.

Julia