The art of cycling 🎨
Painting the Tour de France Femmes
Hello lovely subscribers! 🚴♀️
I’m still on a bit of a break post-TDFF but during the race I spoke with Greig Leach who you may recognise from @ ArtofCycling where he shares his watercolour paintings of the day’s bike racing. Greig painted every stage of the Tour de France Femmes (including stage 1 alongside the men’s race finish even though it was his birthday!) I always enjoy seeing Greig’s paintings on Twitter so I hope you enjoy hearing a bit about him and the BTS of producing them!
Amy x
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I am an exhibiting artist who has a life long love of cycling. I raced amateur in the Washington,DC and Richmond, VA areas back in the 70s. After one of those spectacular crashes that every racer has, I decided I was never going to be good enough to excel as a bike racer. So I decided I would ride for pleasure and make art as my vocation and avocation. I have been married for 43 years next month to the actor Bridget Gethins. We have two adult children and two young granddaughters. My work has been collected around the country and can be found in public, private and corporate collections
What is your background in art, when did you first start to paint?
I have always made art, always. My mother would keep me quiet as a child by simply handing my paper and pencil. I spent all my time in high school in the art room or racing my bike. After two years studying art in a community college I transferred to Virginia Commonwealth University where I started in the Communication Arts department studying design and illustration. I was pulled aside by my illustration professor who said “You are a painter, go be a painter. Someday your art will be used for illustration.” Since then I have painted what I am interested in, what I know, and what motivates me. I have been a Fellow of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a visiting artist to both the VMFA and American Academy of Art in Rome, as well as an Artist-in-Education for the Virginia Commission of the Arts.
Why did you decide to start painting cycling?
I was sitting watching the Tour de France in 2012 feeling guilty for spending the day watching TV. After the first week of the Tour my wife suggested that I paint the Tour and then post them on Facebook and see if they would sell. I have always found that I pay more attention to what is going on when I paint it, so it seemed a natural fit. All of my artwork is about the figure in motion and color, what better describes the pro peloton than that? It was she who then suggested the blog, theartofcycling.blogspot.com and to use twitter instead of facebook to get the work out into the public’s eye. That followed with a crowd sourced book on the 2014 Tour de France, and a joint venture with the Richmond Times Dispatch on a book about the 2015 UCI Road World Championships.
When did you start to paint women’s races or have you always done both? Has increased live TV coverage helped?
Early days it was tough to find any video coverage of women’s cycling outside of the Worlds. But I was hooked on the passion and guts of the style of women’s cycling from what I could see. As the opportunities to watch grew so did my desire to keep painting women’s cycling. Before the World’s came to Richmond, VA, I had the chance to meet Kathryn Bertine and began to understand the plight of women’s cycling. I hope that my commitment to painting women at the same level of interest and intensity that I have painted the men, I would be able in my small way to raise the sport up and show my support.
What are your favourite races or moments within races to paint?
I have always been a big fan of Paris Roubaix and was thrilled to see the women finally allowed to race this iconic race. Now we just need to get the same distance for the women, and get rid of the archaic thought that women can’t handle certain sectors of pavé. I love all of the moments within a race. I love painting the story of a race or a stage. Where the attacks come, who is working for whom, the breakaways and the mass sprints are all the things I like to paint. I rarely ever paint crashes. I hate when TV coverage shows them over and over. It is definitely a part of the sport, but I won’t celebrate it. Only when it is a very important story, like Cav crashing out of this Tour, would I choose to paint a crash.
What is your most memorable painting of a women’s race?
Lizzie Deignan winning the first Paris Roubaix Femmes. I had painted her winning the 2015 UCI Worlds live in Richmond, VA so it was a thrill to paint her winning again.
How do you know which part of the race or which image from the race to paint?
I watch the race from start to finish (or as close to the start as possible) when I find a compelling image I pause the video and start painting. I look for the image that tells the story of the race or is a visually pleasing image. Hopefully, that is contained within one image. I do this as close to live as possible, so I have no idea if the attack is going to stick, who will ultimately win the day’s racing, or who will be out of the race before the end of the day. Time trials are the hardest to capture since any one racer could have the best time by the end of the day and I sure would hate to not have a painting of the winner on the day.
What was your experience of painting the TDFF stages in 2022?
It was a thrill. After painting the men for 21 days, I thought it might be a struggle to keep going, but the racing kept me very excited. Painting the women on the Champs-Élysées before the men was just perfect. I did love Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig racing in her Danish National Jersey. It was quite a year for Denmark and the Tours. And of course Annemiek van Vleuten taking the lead on the last day of the race was special.
What stage are you most looking forward to this year?
The Tourmalet, always the Tourmalet. But a lot will happen before we get there.
Who is your pick for the overall win this year?
I’m picking Demi Vollering in my fantasy team, but I’ve got Katarzyna Niewiadoma as my back up. But then I first painted her here in Richmond, VA in the 2015 Worlds and have just loved her gutsy riding style ever since. She rides like a Polish Alaphilippe.
That’s all 👋
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Amy x