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.