"Teacups and Saucers" Heading to New Home

This painting is going to its new home.  I painted this in 2024 for a special "Alice in Wonderland" show at Porter Mill Studios. This is inspired by the Mad Hatter's Tea Party and the text is from the book by Lewis Carroll. Most recently this painting was on display in Boston's TAG gallery, which also posted it on Artsy. From there, it sold to a far-away buyer and is now on its way to Oregon.  

Early Mother's Day Flowers (photo)

These beautiful flowers were delivered a few days early so I could enjoy them all Mother's Day weekend, and I certainly am!

Flora, the Flowering Cod

Here is Flora, the Flowering Cod, my decorated wooden codfish   This is the final photo that I took before I delivered her to back to Marblehead to be an entry in the annual Cod and Whale Auction. In this event, local artists decorate pre-made fish cutouts which are then displayed and auctioned off to benefit Marblehead Festival of Art. Since the day before, I of course had done a lot of cleanup and added additional coats of paint where needed.  But I also added some more leaves at the edges of the fish, to make the rows of flowers more symmetrical. Then of course I painted the sides (gold) and back (white), signed the back, and added hanging hardware.  Flora was ready to go to Marblehead.

Flora, the Flowering Cod (as of April 29, 2026)

Here is my decorated wooden codfish form as of April 29th.  This is for the annual Cod and Whale Auction in which local artists decorate pre-made fish cutouts which are then displayed and auctioned off to benefit Marblehead Festival of Art.  At this point, Flora was pretty close to my initial idea, which was to transform the "flowering cod", a real species, in rose gold flowers and polkadots.  At this point had colored in the leaves with a mix of gold and green acrylic paint.  I had straightened out the lines on the fins and repainted them with a mix of gold paint that was slightly darker.  I had also painted the sides with the same color.  I thought I was finished, but I was wrong.

Flora, The Flowering Cod (as of April 24, 2026)

Here is my entry for the annual Cod Auction as of April 24, 2026

Every year, some 50 area artists pick up wooden fish cutouts in Marblehead, decorate them, and then deliver them to be displayed and then auctioned online to benefit Marblehead Festival of Art.  This year, my codfish was inspired by some  pretty uninspiring photos of a "flowering codfish", a species with rows of brown markings shaped only vaguely like blossoms, against a stippled background.  I decided to make the markings look more  specifically floral, use rose-gold instead of brown, and turn the stiples into a polka-dot background.  Once I had the idea and sketched out the design, this project went pretty smoothly.   Here you can see I have added the polka dots and markings on the fins, using gold-colored marker.  These will match the edges of the fish, also to be painted gold. I also sketched in some leaves.  To be continued. . . .

Flora, The Flowering Cod (as of April 22, 2026)

Here is my Cod project as it looked on Aprill 22. This is for the  annual Cod Auction to raise money for Marblehead Festival of Art. I had already sketched my design onto the gessoed wooden form, using pencil.  It was time to start painting.  There were a lot of rational ways to begin, but I went directly to the flowers because I wanted to try my idea of painting them a kind of rose gold color, instead of the brown seen on the markings of the actual species, Flowering Cod.  So I mixed some acrylic metallic gold with some pink.  This wasn't the final color, but close enough to convince me that my idea would work.

Flora, The Flowering Cod (as of April 21, 2026)

This is my entry for the annual Cod Auction to benefit Marblehead Festival of Arts as it looked on April 21st. Some 50 artists decorate wooden cutouts of codfish which are displayed in Marblehead and then auctioned. This year I was inspired by photos of a species of cod called "flowering cod."  Actually, the name was more inspiring to me than the actual appearance of the fish:  rows of brown shapes that only vaguely look like flowers, against a stippled skin.  But then the idea came to me: I would make rows of shapes that acctually looked like flowers, I would shift the color from brown to rose-gold, and would replace the stippled markings with polka dots.  Once I had the idea, the design came quickly.  I drew a mock-up on paper posted here recently.   And on April 21,  as you can see, I sketched  the design onto the wooden cutout.