Dimension: 50 by 50cm.
Medium: Acrylic on canvas.
Year completed: 2021.
 
My favouriate flower is Tulip. I fell in love with them when I travelled to Bulgaria in 1991.  Bright yellow, radient red, royal purple.  Each distinct and collectively beautify to the eyes.  Little did I know that tulip has it origin in hard places.  I mean wild native tulips.
 
Pacific Horticultre (2022) desrribes that "despite their nearly compulsory presence in cool spring gardens and fragile bouquets of buxom, long-necked beauties, tulips in the wild are an altogether different breed of much stronger stuff. Native to harsh landscapes in hard-to-reach corners of the world, they’re often found clinging to barren mountain ledges exposed to wind, cold, and drought. Species tulips are tough."  https://www.pacifichorticulture.org/articles/tulips-in-the-wild/
 
These seemily fragile and hard to cultivate tulips are actually every tough plants that can withstand harsh winter temperaturs and long periods of rainless season. In fact, it is preciously the harsh weather of the tough places that the tulip bulbs needs to undergo to renew and stores it enerygy for the next bloom.  A seed turn bulb will take another 3 to 5 years for it to bloom.  
 
In that summer trip to Bulgaria, I saw only the beauty.  Little did I know that each of them had to endure season of harshness for it to end up in the  vase of the kitchen table. 
 
The next time I go through tough situations, I know God is preparing me to Thrive. Thus the name of the painting.