Our previous Kick-About was inspired by the alluring and lonely illuminations of lighthouses—beacons set against the vast and unpredictable sea. This time, we trade maritime mystery for botanical obsession, turning our gaze to Semper Augustus, the most coveted tulip of the Dutch Golden Age—a bloom as rare, storied, and strangely luminous in its own way. Enjoy this bouquet of ‘new works made in a short time’ – and for all previous editions of The Kick-About go here.
Graeme Daly
“With our garden full of flowers at the moment I wanted to pay homage to all the colours scattered in every crevice. I took photos of all the flowers then brought them into photoshop to collage and blend them together to create a rare hybrid inspired by the stunning Semper Augustus”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
James Randall
“So I don’t think I’ve actually seen a Semper Augustus and definitely not up here in Queensland. I was going down a dance costume illustration idea that began going somewhere but met a dead end. So a quick pivot to a more representational illustration for better or worse.”
Charly Skilling
“I didn’t have a great deal of time this KA, so just tried out a few paint techniques to try to capture the sense of the virus breaking out within the tulip. This one turned out most interesting – acrylic on black background, paint applied with palette knife, paint scraper and comb!”
Kerfe Roig
“Fashion! Turn to the left
Fashion! Turn to the right
Oooh, fashion!”
David Bowie
“That about sums it up.”
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Francesca Maxwell
“Few years ago I played around with left over bits of glass from previous work and flowers start to form. Mostly inspired by the tulips in the garden flourishing at the time, one of my favourite bulb. I then found some stones left over from mending the garden wall and started putting them together. It was great fun and I will go back to make more.“
Phil Gomm
“These tulip-inspired photographs were produced by first applying thick acrylic paint mixed with PVA to sheets of acetate—which, appropriately enough, were then left in the greenhouse to dry. I drooled the paint mixture on the acetate, then used a fat, dry decorator’s brush to emulate the colour breaks of tulip petals. That done, I used slips of Sellotape to fasten the acrylic sheets into loose cones, which I then photographed at various exposures to disappear the sheet itself, leaving me with these abstractions.”
philgomm.com / behance.net/Phil_Gomm
Ashley
“Flowers, tulips, Always uplifting. Wonderful.”
Vanessa Clegg
“I found an old 4’ square painting on paper so used the back as I like the stains that have seeped through. The drawing is in coloured crayon and is a record of the end of the flower as it starts to lose its petals and becomes another form of beauty. I think tulips die in a way that makes them endlessly interesting even when colour disappears into parchment—that would have been another piece had I had time!” Crayon on paper. 4’ X 4’. or 122cm X 122cm!
vanessaclegg.co.uk / vanillaclegg
Lewis Punton
“It was the piercing crimson of the Semper Augustus that first peaked my creative interest. I found myself particularly interested in the idea of layering colour on top of my typical semi-blind graphite drawings—in hopes of articulating an element of the intimidation that I thought present in the petals of the broken tulip. First off, I tested the water with a simple drawing made from a flower I found whilst exploring over the weekend, before finally repeating the process with an added layer of red to finish the pieces.”
From the variegated petals of Semper Augustus to the shifting spectrums of James Turrell…
Red's Kingdom 
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