"Newest Member of SMAL"

WOW, where has the time gone? We are almost at the end of January and this is my first post of 2018! 

It's St Michaels Art League banner time again. Every year for the past 8 or so years members of SMAL have painted banners which will be hung along Talbot Street (that's our 'Main Street'). The theme has always been "Celebrate St Michaels."

For those of you who may not know, St Michaels is a small village on Maryland's Eastern Shore. For many years it's 'industry' revolved around the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Crabbing, fishing, oystering - our watermen thrived here. More recently, we have become a tourist destination - shopping, good restaurants, lovely places to stay and interesting things to see and do. There are many ways to go with "Celebrate St Michaels."

However, I have stuck with the crab theme and have had some kind of crab in every banner. I began a series several years ago with "Mikey" - so named by a friend because he was from St Michaels.

Over the years, Mikey has been busy doing a lot of St Michaels activities including holding an anchor (last year), eating an ice cream cone, steering a boat, fooling the British, holding a mug of beer...you get the idea.

So, what to do this year... I decided that Mikey needed to join the St Michaels Art League. He would become a painter. I did a beginning pencil sketch and added a little color.

Little did I know how frustrating this would become! Have you ever thought about how a crab might hold a painter's palette? Is the claw on top? Does it go through a hole? How would I twist it to have Mikey holding it correctly? I did several sketches  - working the claw this way and that.

Was I making this too difficult? YES... This is supposed to be fun. I painted it several times - each time getting a little different look. Unfortunately (or maybe not) I do not have photos of all the attempts. And strangely enough, I was not careful to get a good photo of the final painting. This is the last one that I found in my file.

The original banner art work will be hanging in the St Michaels Library during the month of March and the banners will be hung along the street in mid-April. It will be interesting for me to see if this is really the final version!