Tulip Festival!

my favorite tulip! ink and watercolor in Travelogue sketchbook

It was a fierce competition between the sky and tulip drama in Skagit County, WA last week! I’d been watching the weather forecast for a week, hoping the rain would not drown the tulips, or Janet and I, as we finally launched our three day road trip to the north coastal section of Washington. . .

snow capped Cascades in the distance

and arrived at Roozen Gaarde to glorious peak display and no rain! Instantly I knew I would not take the time to sit down to sketch these impossibly color saturated and magnificently designed flower displays, so I joined the throngs of every-man photographers. I’ll share some here, taken with my iPhone (forgive the crooked horizons!) If you’re a painter/designer/illustrator you may appreciate the color combos. And if you’re a figurative artist you’ll enjoy the people sprinkled throughout, some of them dressed for picture posing! And photographers will note that the reds and hot pinks are seriously “out of gamut!”

What garden have you ever seen where all the blooms are standing up straight like so many soldiers and with no gaps between rows?! 

. . .and no yellow leaves or spent blooms?!

Every year Roozen Gaarde digs up all the gazillion bulbs and replants them in new designs for the next season.

One gets a bit drunk on color after a while and the horizon starts to tip, haha!

Washington Park, Anacortes, across the sound from the San Juan Islands

We cleared our palate the next two days with a visit to nearby La Conner, WA to enjoy the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Arts Museum and Museum of Northwest Art. 

I’ve dreamed for a long time of a trip to the San Juan Islands off the coast, and here in Anacortes we got a good glimpse in Washington Park. Some time this summer maybe?

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