I know you were trying to help the OP visualize drag, but that description I'm afraid is not aerodynamically correct. The reason a windmilling prop has a lot of drag is not due to a higher frontal area of the blades facing the relative wind of the aircraft. You just merely described the parasitic (form drag) component of the physical blades when stopped in different angles towards the aircraft's relative wind. That contribution of drag is much much smaller than the aerodynamic (induced) drag contribution of an autorotating (windmilling) propeller blades, which implies of course their chordwise flow is not stalled and thus extracting work from the forward motion of the aircraft. This is multiples higher than the equivalent flat plate disc area's worth of parasite drag of the propeller arc. This is an often cited visualization, the suggestion that windmilling drag is equivalent to a solid disk's worth of parasite drag, with the same diameter as the prop. That is not an accurate representation of either the value of the drag force, nor the physical dynamics of the source of aerodynamic drag in a windmilling prop.
This nuance is illustrated here
View attachment 51635
Note the yuge/bigly differences in drag contribution between a windmilling prop and a stopped prop, specifically while the windmilling prop is not stalled (around the 20 degree mark or lower).
Now, the correct reason a windmilling prop in fine pitch creates so much drag, is the
negative angle of attack resultant of the much much higher component of forward velocity on the part of the aircraft, versus the now unpowered prop and its greatly diminished rotational speed around the hub. The vector sum of this relationship yields a a propeller relative wind so slanted towards the RW of the aircraft that it creates said negative AOA on the propeller blades. The blades are not stalled however, not even close, and they are now lifting (thrusting) ....in the undesired direction. So lift is going the wrong way, bigly, the airfoil "drag" component of that lift resisting the rotational speed of the prop of course. The resultant steady state rotational windmilling RPM of the prop will be a function of the effective angle of attack, which is itself a function of BOTH the blade angle (if able to be manipulated by the pilot) and the forward velocity of the aircraft, aka no different than a conventional windmill. That aerodynamic explanation is compared below, with top illustration showing a propeller under engine power (aka rotational speed much more dominant than aircraft forward speed), and the bottom illustration a propeller under windmilling conditions. Make note of the angle of attack as the culprit in this dynamic, and how that explains the first graph regarding why a spinning windmilling propeller has so much undesired drag.
View attachment 51641
To reiterate, frontal area of a fine pitched blade against the aircraft relative wind is NOT the reason for drag increases in a windmilling prop, nor its effective flat plate area. It is the
aerodynamic lift acting in the wrong direction while the blades have non-stalled chordwise flow that create the resistance you wished to describe for the OP. When the prop is stopped, then your "stick your paddle out at varying degrees" analogy would be correct.
I understand the oversimplification offered of demonstrating that higher frontal areas do in fact have higher parasitic drag, and getting it conflated with the aerodynamics of rotating propellers. It is a very common misrepresentation I used to fall for myself, until I got two degrees in aerospace engineering and they made me look at these things with so much detail that it made me hate it because I can't see the misprint and not have to post a dissertation of junior level subsonic propulsion aerodynamics 300 course. My apologies for the novel.
Now back to our regular programming of blowing the mind of the OP for daring to ask about pandora's box