Kew Tulip #1

Kew Tulip #1
8" x 10" coloured pencil on Rising Art Paper
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I love tulips. They give you such value in terms of the way they develop as they blossom. First of all they're very pert and proper while still a bud, then they begin to open up and develop their full colour and form which they've been hiding. Then comes the full bloom - well structured with gorgeous colour modulations. Then the bloom begins to mature and look a little blowsy and worse for wear - petals begin to droop and 'go south'. And then the petals begin to 'fall off their perch'. And having written all that I'm convinced tulips must be female as it reminds me of all the stages a woman goes through from teen years to more mature years!

This image is of a tulip at Kew which I've developed from a photo I took at Kew in May last year. The tulip season there is really April to May when the beds around the Palm House are full of interesting varieties.

As part of my plan for this year I'm going to be developing yet more tulip studies of a macro variety although most of these are probably going to be five inches square and single bloom views. Blog posts about tulips are included as links below - I hadn't realised quite how many I'd done!

[Update: .........and you can see Julian's take on tulips here. His are white.]

There are various tulip festivals around the UK (and further field) and I'm just trying to decide which to go to so I can see the old varieties. The 'festivals' include Tulipomania at Dyrham Park near Bath, the tulip festival at Pashley Manor Gardens in East Sussex. I've also included some links about tulips below - mainly so that I've got something to refer back to.

I'm going to write a bit more in another post about my search for the paper I did this on - which is from Rising - and that's all I know.

Links:

• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• Royal Horticultural Society - Top Tulips
  
• Wkipedia - tulip
• BBC Gardening - Tulip
  
• Old Tulips
• Making a Mark: Parrots in Pastel
• Making a Mark: Small Works: Solo Parrot
• Making a Mark: Small Works: Parrot in Profile
• Making a Mark: ........and another parrot tulip makes three
  
• Making a Mark: Mixed Parrot Tulips in Coloured Pencil
• Making a Mark: And finally......Parrot #3
• Making a Mark: Tulips with red stripes - finished
• Making a Mark: It's the same tulips again - but no red stripes this time
  
• Making a Mark: some experimental drawings
  

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