Alla Prima Poppies

Alla Prima (Italian; at first attempt) refers to a painting technique where the artist starts and completes a painting in one session. With oil paint it therefore includes layering wet paint into wet paint, while with pastel painting it simply means starting and completing a painting in one, generally short session. These Alla Prima Poppies were painted on a day where I was intending to paint en plein air (on location, in the outdoors) with three other artist friends, but when we arrived it started raining and we ended up painting inside my friend’s large studio. “Alla Prima Poppies” was completed in a little over an hour from a picture taken of the poppies in her garden.