Tulips – Day 1

Biting cold and blowing snow. A pair of coyote tracks in the driveway. Cats snoozing upstairs in my bed. ‘Twas a perfect day to paint red tulips in a nice, warm studio, listening to Joe Biden’s inauguration.

At the start it looked like this (below). Having painted tulips many times, I’ve learned to keep at them and try to paint them all in one fell swoop. Nose-to-the-grindstone. Tulips have the most annoying ability to twist and grow overnight. Tomorrow everything will look different. Argh! And I felt so lazy today!

Some people say they can’t draw a straight line. Hey – no problem there. That’s what rulers are for! My difficulty is drawing circles. Especially elipses. A struggle there. Obviously this is not one of those projected and traced” drawings. Yes, I moan and groan, but a secret: drawing it in is the most fun part. After that it’s almost drudgery.

After drawing in the basic design I’d have preferred to just quit for the day. Yesterday was a workout: wrestling with 2 crippled Soltek easels, removing the legs and packaging them for shipping. Easier said than done. It took hours. Then I had to cart the whole mess up to Charlevoix to ship via UPS in a snowstorm. So this afternoon I kept at it, doggedly painting in the blooms (below) and eventually painting the snarl of leaves. The worst is over! But alas — it’s almost sad to see the end so near….