I made this watercolour/aquarelle painting for the recent 4x6 art swap. I wanted to try to paint some poppies since they’re one of my favourites. I used reference pictures for the large poppy and poppy buds, and then kind of winged it for the rest of the composition.
Here’s the final result, ready to pop in the mail.
This is an in progress picture before adding more details and cutting it to size. I added so many layers before I was happy. At first the background poppies were just red blobs, but I think they popped more with the dark centers. It’s a purpley black mixed from paynes gray and who knows what else 
I tend to just mix until it looks good.
Now, the size 4x6 is a bit challenging in europe apparently, but I have a paper cutter and a steel ruler and I’m not afraid to use them. I made a 4x6 cardboard template to be able to try out various ways to cut out the final picture, and that really helped.
I also had cute help who wanted to test bite the brushes for me. Cats, man.
I should really play with my aquarelle colours more!