After making a reed-pen drawing of the work, now held by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, he copied the composition twice in oils in his studio, one approximately the same size (F615) and a smaller version (F743). The larger studio version was probably painted in a single sitting, with a few minor later adjustments adding touches of yellow and brown. Van Gogh sketched out the design with charcoal underdrawing; he applied thin paint on the cypress trees and sky, with the ground allowed to show in places, and thick impasto for the foreground wheat and the clouds above.[1] Characteristically, he preferred the brilliant white of zinc white (zinc oxide) for the white clouds rather than lead white, despite its poor drying qualities, with his palette also including cobalt blue for the sky, shades of chrome yellow for the wheat field, viridian and emerald green for the bushes and cypresses, and touches of vermilion for the poppies in the foreground and also synthetic ultramarine.[2] The July "plein air" version was much more heavily worked, and may be considered a study for the more considered September studio painting.