For the Love of Poppies – Jacki Kellum Pastel Study
September 15, 2025

Jacki Kellum Garden May 1, 2025

I am an avid gardener, and I love the time in early spring when poppies flutter across my garden. Invariably, when the poppies and bachelor buttons overtake my garden, I always want to stop my world to sit down and paint. But before now, I have not been organized enough to do that. I simply did not have enough space to do art in my house, which was also my frustratingly lack of a studio. But things are finally coming together so that I’ll be ready to paint whenever I feel the urge.

About six weeks ago, I began moving most of the things out of my living room and opened a gallery and arts space that is less than a half mile from my home. The most obvious reason for opening that space was to provide a gallery space for my art.

Right now, I’m framing more art to get ready for Water Valley’s Art Crawl, which will take place on October 4, 2025.

In moving all the stuff out of my living room to my gallery, I solved another problem. Since my living room furniture is now in my gallery space, I have the space to paint at home, and I have turned my newly emptied living room into a spacious art studio. Finally, I have a designated space to do any type of art that I want to do.

But I had not been painting for a while, and I needed to be reminded how to paint. Fortunately, I bumped into a couple of online workshops, and last week, I began studying with [copying] some artists that I admire. One of those artists was the pastelist Karen Margulis, and I shamelessly watched the following of her pastel  tutorials:

Karen Margulis is a master, and with just a few swipes, she creates convincing poppies. I followed along with her demo, but I realized that I needed more understanding of how a poppy looks. [Margulis just suggests her poppies, and I like that. But suggestions should be based on the foundation of at least knowing what is there.] I found the following photo of a poppy on Pixabay:

Before I painted my own poppy, I noted where the petals fell on what would become my own pastel study:

And Voila!

For the Love of Poppies
Jacki Kellum Pastel Study

My pastel study is similar to that of Karen Margulis, but I have drawn another flower. I give Karen Margulis credit for getting me started.

Is It OK to Copy Other Artists?

Yes. Artists Have Been Copying Other Artists For Centuries. It is important to learn from other artists and to test what you have learned by creating your own painting that simply employs some of what you have learned from another artist.