HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) — A two-time “Art in Bloom” poster winner at Tulip Time would typically spend the final days of April preparing to showcase her work at the annual festival. Instead, she’s finding ways to bring color to her community amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Carolyn Stich’s piece “Enduring Delft” was the poster image for the festival last year. Previously, she won the poster contest in 2015.  

News 8 spoke to the Holland artist after the city’s mayor asked people to not visit this year because of the virus. 

Last month, festival organizers made the difficult decision to cancel Tulip Time, which would’ve started May 2. 

“I cried with everybody else,” Stich told News 8 Tuesday afternoon. “You know, we knew it was coming. We knew that they had to make that choice. Now that the time is here, it’s pretty clear they made the right choice, but we just have to keep on thinking our health is more important than anything else.”

She’s maintaining that perspective while adapting to online sales and, most recently, curbside pickup at her 8th Street studio in Holland.

Stich has also shared daily drawing tutorials on YouTube and created downloadable coloring pages on her Facebook page.

“Art is one of those very peaceful things you can do if you let it be peaceful, I thought that it might be a good idea to just start doing these tutorials and I meant them to be for kids, but it’s really fun to see the adults that are sending me and they say they just grab a glass of wine and sit down and draw with me for 20 minutes,” Stich said. 

She’s encouraging people to print the coloring pages she created, make them your own, and either send them to essential workers or hang them for people to see outside.

Stich’s free tutorials can be found on her YouTube page.