Oregon Tulips

Title: Oregon Tulips

Oil on canvas, 30x24 inches

Oregon Tulips came about during a time when brain energy was low, and my nervous system was on high alert. I felt compelled to create while lacking the energy and focus to work deeply.

Working in 20-minute sessions with periods of cognitive rest in between, I browsed photos of past adventures in the Pacific Northwest along with paintings by contemporary artists whose bold color and loose brushwork I admire. I created thumbnail sheets of paintings and photographs to inspire me, then spread them around me while listening to brain and nervous-system healing playlists. I sketched a first composition with my non-dominant, left hand, refined it with my right, painted a color study in gouache, projected the drawing onto canvas, and completed the final oil piece.

The scene took me back to a trip to the tulip farms south of Portland, where the tulips stood in brilliant red against still water, with snow-capped Mt. Hood posed in the distance. Even on a day when I had almost nothing to give, color still found its way onto the canvas — which is, in the end, what this work is always about.