Here is my painting as of Mar 25, 2025. This painting is for a special event at the Salem Athenaeum, marking the 175th anniversary of Nathanial Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter." This painting began with a quotation from the novel, seen below.* I used prison bars as the background for the text. The wild rose bush, mentioned in the quotation, in my painting is visible through the prison window, with its long branches positioned to form the scarlet letter A which is central to the novel.
On Mar 25, having resolved the issue of the color for the window frame, I knew I had the final composition, so began to refine the details. I got my T-square out again and began to straighten the lines of the prison bars and the window frame. At this point, I still hadn't noticed any problem with the text. To be continued. . .
*Here is the quotation from Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter::
"But on one side of the portal and rooted almost at the threshold was a wild rose bush covered, this month of June, with its delicate gems which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom in token that the deep heart of Nature would pity and be kind to him."