Arts and Craft Style Poppy

I am taking a slight (but related) detour from A Hundred Things a Girl Can Make because I am so enamored of this stylized, simple poppy from a book I just "won" on ebay, by Hugo Froehlich and Bonnie Snow (of course). The poppy illustrates a lesson on composition from Froehlich and Snow's Textbooks of Art Education, Book VII (The Prang Educational Company, 1905). The title of the lesson is "Decorative Compositions from Plant Forms."

Here are some highlights of the lesson:

"It is well to have a clear idea of what is meant by a composition, and to know in what ways a "composed" picture differs from a free sketch or drawing. When we sketch from nature or from objects for the purpose of gaining information, our chief aim is to study the main lines and their directions, and the proportions and values or colors of the masses, setting these facts down in a way that will express all the natural beauty and character of what we see. But when we have the idea of a composition in mind, we think, rather, of the problem of adapting and arranging what we see in such a way that beauty will result. . . .

. . . In the drawing of the poppy, some arrangement was desired that could be used in a decorative way. Accordingly, the shapes seen in the plant were simplified; the lines of the stems were made to cut the space in a pleasing way; the few values used were flat; the background shapes were so related to the shapes suggested by the growth that balance was secured; and, finally, all shapes were outlined with a strong definite line, which added to the general effect of flatness and simplicity. . . .

From a suitable plant growth, make a decorative composition. The shapes may be carefully drawn with pencil, and the composition studied and corrected. Then the lines may be traced with brush and ink on Japanese paper, and the shapes filled in with flat tones of neutral gray or color, as suggested in the illustration."

I'd love to see what you come up with by following this simple lesson!