Two Paintings in Galatea's "Time and Place" Show

Here are two of my paintings, on display at Galatea Fine Art, on display in September in the "Time and Place" show.  Painting on left is "Toward the Mountains," and the painting on the right is "Pikes Peak in September". I took this picture just before the show closed (on September 29th).

Cups and Saucers (Alice in Wonderland project), Color sketch

I am getting ready to paint for the "Alice in Wonderland" show at Porter Mill Studios. This is the sketch for the painting:  a quotation from the book* combined with teacups and saucers for the Mad Hatter's tea party.  I am planning a "musical chairs" color scheme,  which I determined by selecting nine colors and then "counting off" each of the areas in each square (cup, cup interior, saucer, saucer edge, background),  To complete this sketch, I had written the numbers and colors at the bottom of the page in pencil, and then added the colors with marker.  I had included my numbering scheme in an earlier post, but this time, I cropped the sketch to show just the actual plan for the painting.  (You can still see the numbering in this sketch, but the numbers won't show in the painting.) 

*In case you can't read the quotation, it is:  "Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. "I've had nothing yet, "Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more." "You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter. "It is very easy to take more than  nothing."

Cups and Saucers (Alice in Wonderland project) color sketch with numbers as of Sept. 18, 2024

This is the sketch for the painting I am planning for Porter Mill's upcoming "Alice in Wonderland" show. I am combining a quotation about the Mad Hatter's tea party with a repeated pattern of tea cups and saucers.  Yesterday I finished laying out the color, following the numbered color scheme seen here in pencil below the sketch.  (I simply numbered each shape in every position, so the colors of each area change in each square, mirroring the "music chairs" aspect of the tea party in the novel.) I used Sharpies and Sharpies creative markers for the color, and then used some white conte crayon to lighten and soften some of the colors.  When I complete the actual painting with this design, I will have more control over the colors.  So I plan to use this basic color scheme.  I was worried that in some cases there would not be enough contrast between some of the colors, but but I decided that I would solve that in each square by using a darker version of the saucer's color to outline where needed.  Perhaps you can see that I did that in this sketch.  So now I am feeling confident that this will work.  The next step is to get the canvas. . . .

Cups and Saucers (Alice in Wonderland project), Color sketch as of Sept. 18, 2024

I continued with this sketch yesterday.  This is for a painting I plan to do for an "Alice in Wonderland" themed show at Porter Mill.  I decided to apply color to my pencil sketch, just to see how things would look.  (I decided to use nine colors.  In each square, there are five areas to color, so I just numbered each area to create a kind of changing but random color scheme.  The numbers and colors at the bottom of this photo show my color scheme.  The numbers aren't going to be in the final painting.)  I used standard Sharpies as well as some of the new Sharpie creative markers to apply color.  These are not the actual colors I plan to use.  I love Sharpies, but the colors you can use are limited.  I had to stop for the day before I finished, so you can still see the numbers in place on each area.  To be continued. . .

Cups and Saucers (Alice in Wonderland project), Sketch as of September 15, 2024

I recently did a painting of a whirlpool for Porter Mill's special "Moby Dick" exhibit, currently on display in the lobby.  A recent email from Porter Mill announced that there will soon be a show based on Alice in Wonderland.  An idea came to me right away: a quotation about the mad tea party and a painting  of teacups and saucers.  I sketched my idea  right away (posted on September 14th).  Today  I am posting my second pencil sketch on paper, a revision of my original idea.  I am keeping the idea of nine squares, but simplifying to one cup and one saucer per square, uniform shapes, but changing direction. The idea is bright colors, painted flat or nearly flat, like a color-field painting, but changing colors in every square. I want to convey the craziness of the madcap  teaparty.  I was trying to figure out the color scheme to make sure the colors would work in each square but then decided to just go with a random sequence.  So I came up with nine colors* and then started numbering, first cups, then saucers, etc.  I thought that the Mad Hatter would approve of this crazy idea, and that made me smile.  Next step:  Trying out the color scheme.

*The color scheme appears at the bottom of the image, but will not be part of the actual painting

Cups and Saucers (Alice in Wonderland project) Sketch as of Sept. 14, 2024

Not so long ago, I was posting about painting for the "Moby Dick" themed art show at Porter Mill Studios here in Beverly, MA.  I recently received an email saying that the response to this show had been so positive that there will be another themed show, this time based on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  As soon as I heard that, I said yes! and this idea came to me almost immediately:  Cups and saucers for the Mad Hatter's tea party, stacked up in a cupboard, with a quotation written along the horizontal lines of the shelf.  I drew this VERY rough sketch right away, 9" x 9' on drawing paper. The cups and saucers are both too rough and too complicated (and were simplified in a later drawing) but my main goal at this point was to figure out a general composition and make sure that the quotation would fit.  Here is the quotation:  ""Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice very earnestly,'  'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't take more.' 'You mean you can't take less,' said the Hatter.  'It's very easy to take more than nothing.'"

World Trade Center (with Prisma app's Lynx filter)

Although I saw the World Trade Center many times on trips into New York City, I regret that only took a handful of good photos of  those towers.  But I think it is a good idea to remember on September 11th, so today I opened one of my photos in the Prisma app on my phone and selected the "Lynx" filter.  

Toward the Mountains (Acrylic Watermedia)

This is the second of two paintings now on display at Galatea Fine Arts, in a group show called "Time and Place".  I had an unexpected opportunity to show a second painting so I chose this one (part of a previous solo show)  and delivered it to Galatea  over the Labor Day weekend, along with my new painting of Pikes Peak.