"Midsummer's Flowers" (Painting as of June 2, 2025)

Here is my "Midsummer's Flowers" painting as it looked on June 2. This painting is for the July "Midsummer Night's Dream" exhibit at the TAG gallery in Boston.  I decided to base this painting on  on a short poem from Shakespeare's play.: "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,/Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." I wrote each of the four lines of the poem is around the four sides of the painting.  The six flowers mentioned in the poem are represented In the middle of the canvas, shown in the style of botanical illustration.  On this day,  I began to add some gold tones to the border.  The gold tone is just yellow and brown acrylic paint. The idea is to make the border look like a picture frame. To be continued. . . .

"Midsummer's Flowers" (Painting as of June 1, 2025)

Here is my "Midsummer's Flowers" painting as it looked on June 1. This painting is for the July "Midsummer Night's Dream" exhibit at the TAG gallery in Boston.  My painting is based  on a short poem from Shakespeare's play.: "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,/Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." Each of the four lines of the poem is written around the four sides of the painting.  In the middle of the canvas are of each of the six flowers mentioned in the poem,  done in the style of botanical illustration.  In this photo you  can see that at this point, I was working on the lettering for the text of the poem, which runs around the borders of the canvas, one line of the poem on each of the four sides.  I also added guidelines for the border, which I planned to paint to look like a picture frame.

"Midsummer's Flowers" (Painting as of May 31, 2025)

Here is my "Midsummer's Flowers" painting as of May 31. This painting is for a July exhibit at the TAG gallery in Boston.  The show has the theme "Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare.  My painting is based  on a short poem from the play.: "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,/Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." I write each of the four lines of the poem around the edges of the painting.  In the center are representations of each of the six flowers mentioned in the poem,  done in the style of botanical illustration.  May 31, I added more color to each of the flowers with Sharpie markers and acrylic paint.  I began to put in thebackground color. Instead of white -like the pages of a botanical illustration, I chose a very pale blue, which suggests the sky. 

"Bonita Bacalhau" at Cod Auction Preview

This is "Bonita Bacalhau," the wooden codfish that I decorated for this year's "Cod and Whale Auction," to benefit Marblehead Festival of Art.  I took this photo at the Cod Auction Preview on May 30th. It was great to see all the decorated codfish and whales all on display.  If you are interested, bidding ends on July 6th, 9 pm Eastern time. (To bid, go to m.biddingforgood.com/auctions/341802044; then click on Search Items and type "Bonita" in the search bar)

"Midsummer's Flowers" (Painting as of May 30, 2025)

Here is my "Midsummer's Flowers" painting as of May 25. I am painting this for July exhibit with the theme "Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare.  I based my painting on a short poem from the play.: "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,/Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." I placed each of the four lines of the poem on the border of the painting.  Inside the border are paintings of each of the six flowers mentioned,  in the style of botanical illustration. On May 25, I began to apply color to the sketches of the six flowers, beginning with Sharpie markers to outline the blossoms and leaves.

Color Sketches for "Midsummer's Flowers," May 25-27

Yesterday I posted a  collection of the pencils sketches I drew around May 23-24, as I prepared to include these flowers in my painting "Midsummer's Flowers." Today I am posting a second set of flower sketches for the painting, this time done in color with Sharpie pens on paper May 25-27. The painting is for show in a July with the theme of Shakespeare's play "Midsummer Night's Dream." I am basing my painting on a short poem from the play: "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With musk-roses and with eglantine."  In my painting, the text of the poem is written around all four sides of the image, on a border painted to look like a picture frame.  Within that frame, I will paint each of the six flowers in the style of botanical illustration. To do these sketches, I had to figure what Shakespeare understood by these names, which aren't all in contemporary use.  (There is a whole little industry on botany in Shakespeare.) And then I looked at a lot of photos to figure out leaf shape, petal number, etc.  and then made these sketches.  Sometimes the photos didn't agree, especially on leaf shape, so I had to choose.

"Midsummer's Flowers", Painting as of May 24, 2025

Here is my painting as of May 24. I am painting this for a July exhibit with the theme "Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare.  My painting is based on a little poem from the play: "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,/Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." Each of the four lines of the poem appears on the border of the painting.  Inside the border are paintings of each of the six flowers mentioned, done in the style of botanical illustration. On May 24, using as reference the sketches I had made on paper,  I used conte crayon on the canvas to block in the location of each of the six plants.  At this point, I was just trying to establish the layout and the composition. 

"Midsummer's Flowers" (Painting) as of May 24, 2025

This painting is for an upcoming exhibit with the theme "Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare.  I am basing this painting on a little poem from the play.: "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,/Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." Each of the four lines of the poem appears on the border of the painting.  Inside the border are paintings of each of the six flowers mentioned, done in the style of botanical illustration.

Pencil Sketches for "Midsummer's Flowers," May 23-25, 2025

This is a collection of the pencils sketches I drew around May 23-24, as I prepared to paint these flowers in my painting "Midsummer's Flowers." The painting is for an upcoming show organized around the theme of Shakespeare's play "Midsummer Night's Dream." My painting is based on a short poem from the play that mentions these six flowers.* In my painting, the text of the poem will run around the edges of the canvas, like a picture frame, and within the frame I will paint each of the six flowers in the style of botanical illustration. So while I was laying out the composition on the canvas and establishing the lettering, I was also researching images of these plants, and then sketching them.  Big breakthrough as I figured out how to create a collage of these sketches!!!

*The poem: "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With musk-roses and with eglantine."

"Brothers and Sisters" (Portrait as of May 24, 2025)

Here is the portrait I am working on as it looked on May 24th.  I continued to work on the positions and proportions of these four little kids.  I had been struggling with the position of the feet, but found a secret weapon.  In my reference photo, the kids are standing on a surface of rectangular pavers, which provided a grid for me!  So I got out my protractor, checked the angles in the reference photo, and then tried to reproduce those angles on the canvas.  This sounds like a strange way to begin a portrait, but it was really helpful.

PS. If you look closely, you can see a number written on each figure: that's the child's age.  I want to keep that in mind because proportions change as children grow.

"Brothers and Sisters," Portrait as of May 23, 2025

Here is the portrait I am working on, as it looked on May 23rd. I am making haste slowly, try to get the proportions and positions right for all four children before I go forward.  It would be more fun to dive right in and paint the faces, but it is important to do this first.  The way the face looks really does depend on the position of the body, so I need to be patient and work this out. At this point, I was struggling with getting four pairs of kids shoes in the right place.. . .

"Midsummer's Flowers" (Shakespeare project), Painting as of May 23, 2025

This is the painting I am working on for the upcoming art show with the theme of  Shakespeare's play "Midsummer Night's Dream". On May 23, I continued working with the layout, concentrating (and correcting) the text around the edges of the canvas.  Each side is a line from the poem that I am using as the basis for the painting: "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." I am planning to paint the borders to look like a frame. And within the frame I am going to paint the six different types of poems names in the painting, in the style of botanical illustrations. You can see the labels on each rectangle: wild thyme, oxlips, nodding violets, woodbine, musk-roses, and eglantine.  I this point, I was just concentrating on straightening out the placement of the lettering.  This part is messy and also tedious, but it has to be done because the text is an important part of the painting. To be continued. . . .