Bedroom Moodboard: California Poppies

On my walk this morning I was hit with some inspiration for a painting I want to do above the bed. Since the color theme is teal and yellow-orange, and since I'm living in California now, what could be more appropriate than a painting of the state's flower, California poppies?

Feeling totally in the zone, I created this mood board.

 

Here's the breakdown: 

1. A photo of those Cali poppies I found. These are the colors I'll be using in my painting. Deep teal background (possibly a bit darker than this) with bright pops of orange. It's gonna be sweet!
2. "Alang" table lamp from Ikea. We've just added this to the bedroom to replace the hanging lantern. It was on sale for $20!
3.  My lovely color muse. Scored at Ross for $8. I need to think of a name for this gal... maybe "O", because of the shape and because she solves all my problems ;).
4. "Solarized duvet cover" from West Elm. The thing that started it all.
5. Gray curtains from Target that EXACTLY match the color of the duvet.
6. Home Centric on Etsy makes these totally gorgeous pillows and I want them all. I'm gonna try to get a custom one made, see below.
7. They aren't poppies, but they're the right colors! I may try my luck again at keeping some orchids alive (I've already killed two) but I may end up resorting to silk flowers.
8. Some dark brown baskets for storage. I've already nabbed one from Michael's for $5 to store stuff on top of my "night stand"

The great thing about Etsy is that many of the sellers will do custom orders. Lucky for me, Home Centric does them too! I did a photoshop mockup of the pillow I want and sent it to her (though looking at the sheer number of pillows for sale in her store, I suspect "she" is more of a factory of sorts). May I present to you, the perfect pillow:

Can you see the poppy influence? I've placed a custom order for two of these at $34 a piece. A bit on the pricey side, but I like to support Etsy sellers whenever I can, and c'mon, it's custom made. 

So, pillows: check.

Still feeling inspired, I went home and did a small "preview" painting. In addition to desperately needing  to restock my Etsy shop, I also wanted to see if I could pull this whole poppy thing off. This is one of the first paintings I've done in 4 months (I fall completely out of the zone when I've done three or more bad paintings in a row, which is what happened, well, 4 months ago). But once I placed the final touches on this one, it was totally an "Aww yeah!" moment.

Can you picture it all coming together? I've been feeling so inspired by all of this that I actually did three GOOD paintings in a row. Phew, thought I would be stuck in a rut for much longer than that. You'll see them pop up in my Etsy shop soon!