Bridget Bryan

June in our family is filled with birthdays. And many of our neighbors’ gardens are filled with cheery poppies. While planning out my summer, I decided to illuminate my calendar with poppies.

Today, I’ll show you the fruit of that, which in turn was the fruit of observing both some good friends’ poppies and my dad’s wildflowers. During that time we had my sister’s and mom’s birthdays, so I thought I’d show you both products.

By the way, I am nearly a week late with this, due to being on a religious retreat, and moving! Thanks for patiently waiting for the next post. I hope this is worth it. 😉

If you keep reading, you’ll see my urban sketches/ nature journal entries of the friends’ lovely poppies.

I was trying to capture the sun streaming through them, but I didn’t quite do it justice. Still, the shape and ‘sense’ of it was caught, I do think.

I’ve found that when I sit down to do a painting, I feel like I have to finish it all in one setting. When I do that, I rush and spoil things (kinda like the rest of life!). Here and in some successive paintings, I’ve realized if I just focus on capturing one part of the subject well, I’d be a lot happier with the final product.

The poppies were two different kinds, both oriental poppies. I loved seeing them in their different stages!

Do you like my paintings with or without the ink outline? I can’t decide. Sometimes it looks better, and sometimes not. Your perspective would be appreciated.

So, around the same time, I decorated my summer calendars with poppies and a blue flower that I think is called a bachelor button.

You probably can’t see it too well, but there’s a bee harvesting pollen on this guy:

For my sister’s birthday, I promised her a horseback-riding lesson and a Chick-fil-A outing. I tried to get my horse to resemble the style of Joseph Zbukvik, and I have to say, I was really happy with the results.

The horse turned out fluid, yet alive looking. It had been a while since I painted my favorite animal. This product felt pretty righteous.

Then it was my mother’s birthday. I was at a loss of what to do, so I chose to do a whimsical illuminated card that captured her brick oven, redone, and our charming chickens.

The slideshow shows some of the card up close.

Well, that’s all for now! I hope you enjoyed these cheery pictures! I’d love to hear if you prefer ink lines, or no ink lines.

Thanks so much for reading!

And before you leave, I’d love it if you would check out the notebooks in which I did all these paintings.

That’d be grand, because when you click the link below, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.