Iceland Poppy in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is cultivate. And this (well, not the picture; the type of plant) is one of the first things I ever cultivated.

I grew up calling them Icelandic Poppies, but the internet tells me that the more common name is Iceland Poppies these days. They grow in my father's yard like weeds, but they're very happy weeds for me partly because they provide some of the first colour we get in spring and partly because I can vaguely, very vaguely, remember "helping" my mother plant some when I was very young. If you want the more complete version of the story and are willing to suffer through some indifferent poetry, check here.

I come from a gardening family (on both the maternal and paternal sides), and even today my balcony gets planted up each spring. Not with poppies, but there are plenty of other nostalgic things to make up for their lack. I'm a bit of an old-style flower buff, I guess.

I know that this particular poppy isn't looking terribly poppy-ish, but when I was going through my photos to find some poppy inspiration the shape of this one appealed to me. I'm hoping to get a little more doodling in yet this weekend, and if I get another poppy done (hey... maybe I'll even aim for colour. What a thought. A coloured poppy) I'll post it up later.

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Ok, there's a coloured poppy of sorts here...