Petals…or Pedals?
I had so much fun at the Willamette Valley last weekend! After hiking the Silverton Falls (10 falls, 7 miles…we shortened our hike and had 5 falls in 5 miles…gorgeous), we toured Frank Lloyd Wright’s Gordon House (my favorite architect of all time…what a treat), then managed to fit in a stop at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm before calling it a day…yep, all that in ONE day, and heading back to our VRBO in McMinnville.
I was somewhat amazed (and a little disgusted, frankly) at the commercialism of the Wooden Shoe. I had different visions of a quiet, peaceful field of tulips, but instead, there were inflatable kid toys, bungee jumping, rides through the tulips on a “train”, a hot air balloon, you name it. But for my purposes, we headed straight into the fields, where I managed to shoot about 200 photos of tulips and people in the tulips. It was incredibly beautiful.
You will see several paintings from this trip, but the first one I had to do was this one, a man on a bike, riding through the field. PERFECT! I took several shots of him. He seemed to be leisurely poking along, glancing down at the flowers every now and again, clearly out for a casual ride to see the sights.
String, paper squares, produce netting and scribbles dance in the canvas, providing a crazy, fun background for the tulip colors.
Details:

In the background, I suggested trees and a distant field of pink flowers. You can see the squares of paper, produce netting grid, and string

Up close of Mr. Tulip Guy, where there is gridded pattern of netting and paper squares as well as a fruit tree in the background.

Here is a detailed view of the bike, with string, painted grids, and paper collage. As you can see, the flowers are not painted as such, but suggested by mass and color.
Finished original on Plexiglas! One of my favorite areas is the background, where it seems a little surreal, or suggestive of trees, clouds, and haze. This turned out to be a fabulous painting!! It strikes the perfect mood.
The question was…Petals? Or Pedals for my title. After some deliberation, I decided on Petals. Why? Not sure, other than that I just love the flowers.
Cheers!
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4 Responses to “Petals…or Pedals?”
Lovely painting! I get the sense of being there by looking at it and not all painters can pull this off, bravo to you. 🙂 I understand what you mean about how commercialism can be off-putting. I am the type of person who wants serenity and quiet while experiencing nature, even if it is a location like this. I will be making a visit to a hugely popular gardens known for the tulips, I am inspired to do a post about that.
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Yes, I like my quiet and peaceful surroundings as well. It is worth going to these places for the paintings, however, isn’t it? We can take the viewer to what we WISH the place to be, so that they can experience only what we want to convey. In this case, the peace and quiet of a man pedaling through the tulips. No one has to feel the chaos of the background that was actually there. Enjoy the gardens! I’m sure it will be lovely! And I really have enjoyed reading your blog on painting. Keep me posted. Can’t wait to see what you come up with there! 🙂
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I love, your painting style, your sweet charm, vibrating, feelings; your simplicity, difficult; and your choice of colors, very harmonies …… Congratulations, my dear friend
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You are so sweet! Thank you! It’s so fun to make connections on the net! 🙂
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