Here is my painting as of Mar 26, 2025. I decided to paint this for a special event at the Salem Athenaeum to mark the 175th anniversary of Nathanial Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter." So I based this painting on a quotation from the novel, shown below.* I decided to use the prison bars as the background for the text. The wild rose bush, mentioned in the quotation, is visible through the prison window, red roses on its long branches position to suggest the letter A in red: the Scarlet Letter of the novel.
On March 25th and 26th, I was working close to the deadline so started to refine the image. I continued to work on the prison bars, concentrating on making the lighting consistent (using nearby window blinds as a guide!). I also worked on brightening the roses. And still didn't realize there was an error in 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."
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