"Midsummer's Flowers" (Acrylic Mixed Media Painting)

Here is my painting on June 28, finished and ready to be packed up for the trip into Boston. This is my "Midsummer's Flowers" painting, headed for the "Midsummer Night's Dream" exhibit in July at the TAG gallery in the SOWA district. 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.  And six flowers that are mentioned in the poem appear In the center of the canvas,  in the style of botanical illustration. Back in early June, I thought it was just about finished and photographed it for the required digital image. But since then, I repainted the blue background, making it look a little more blue, but softer, like the sky. And I added a layer of gold acrylic craft paint to the border. I went over all the straight lines with a T-square.  I went over all the lines and shapes of the flowers. I made many, many small corrections in the lettering.  And yes, at the last minute, I realized I was spelling "eglantine" in two different ways: with an 'i' as in the poem, and with a "y", a spelling that crept in from looking at flower images on Google. So I fixed that. I am happy with this now and am glad I kept going.  I often say that art is about making mistakes and correcting them.  I think that it is also about persistence.

Near Colorado Springs (for Galatea and Friends Show)

I chose this painting for the July "Galatea and Friends" show. I painted this back in 2021, based on a photo that I took during trip to Colorado a few years earlier.  This is a spot that you see when you drive from Denver to Colorado Springs; this is just north of the Air Force Academy.  My friend Pam Peltier, showing with me at Galatea, used to live close to that location,  so I thought this would be a good choice for the show.  

Guest Artist: Pam Peltier Dickinson

This image is artwork by my friend Pam Peltier Dickinson.  I met Pam in high school in 1965 and we also took art classes together in college.  So when I learned that Galatea Fine Art was having a "Galatea and Friends" show in July 2025, Pam was the obvious choice.  She mailed this artwork to me and I took this photo of it on June 20th.  The title is "Sous la Lune d'Automne" (Under the Autumn Moon).*

*Pam enjoys French and that is another tie that connects us because I was her "language lab" when she studied French in college.

"Midsummer's Flowers" (Painting as of June 3, 2025)

This is my "Midsummer's Flowers" painting as it looked on June 3. This painting is for the "Midsummer Night's Dream" exhibit in July 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.  And six flowers that are mentioned in the poem appear In the center of the canvas,  in the style of botanical illustration.  On June 3rd,  I went over the lettering under each flower with dark blue.  And I added dark brown to the inside and outside border. Although the painting wasn't finished, at this point all of the elements of the painting were in place so I could see how it was going to look. This was good because even though I didn't have to deliver the actual painting until the end of June, the deadline was fast approaching to submit a digital image of it to the gallery.  To be continued. . . .

"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.