My 2026 Banner!

 It's that time again... SMAL (St. Michaels Art League) Banners. At the beginning of each year, SMAL artists begin planning artwork that will be scanned and printed on banners which are hung along Talbot Street (our 'Main' Street) from mid-April until mid-November. The banners are decorative and also speak to who we are and what our town represents. The banner theme has always been 'Celebrate St. Michaels'.

For years I have been painting "Mikey," a bright colored crab, showcasing the many aspects of our town. Mikey has gone fishing, eaten an ice cream cone, piloted a boat, gone shopping, held an anchor and a life preserver. You get the idea...

So, what's left to highlight?... the many beautiful gardens and the idea that so many of us like to play in the dirt. This year Mickey will be planting a garden!

I began sketching... Mikey needed a garden hat and garden gloves, of course. It was fun thinking about how his claws would look with green gloves on. I usually begin my banner sketch on plain drawing paper, so this first sketch is very wrinkled with watercolor paint.

I tried adding some seed packets and a background - which really wrinkled it!

At this point, I showed it to my art group and they didn't like the pot by Mikey's 'elbow'. So I moved things around a little with another sketch.

The pots are moved around. I still liked the seed packets, but as much as I liked them, I knew that things were getting a little cluttered and I was feeling a little overwhelmed.

 "Overwhelmed" really was the word! I had been trying to escape the 'world', throwing myself into my art, but I was becoming more distressed with what was going on in our country and the world. Even though I was only reading 'headlines,' I decided that I wanted to somehow put all this in my banner and make some kind of subtle statement. 

I experimented a little with the seed packets... 

And then, I had another idea...I transferred the initial sketches to watercolor paper and left out the cluttered seed packets. I put my 'statement' in the plant markers in the pots!

I got out my watercolors and finished the painting. Knowing that I don't print that well, I went to my computer and made easily readable plant markers which I just glued onto the painting!

"Planting the seeds of HOPE, RESPECT and KINDNESS"

All the banners can be viewed on the SMAL website https://smartleague.org/banner-program/  and will soon be hanging along the street. Posters of all the banners are for sale at Creative Xpressions in St. Michaels from now through the end of the year!

Mix It Up!

 One of the very creative artists in the St. Michaels Art League (SMAL) loves 'mixed media' and has chaired a show during the month of January called 'Mix it Up!'  January is a tough time to do a show because everyone is just 'recovering' from the holidays...and it takes a while to create something new.

Somehow she manages to get enough people to jump on board with this and we turn out amazing, creative pieces. Nancy works hard to make this all work and I wanted to support her efforts so I rummaged through a pile of old art pieces to see if I could mix something up.

I found an old small canvas that I had worked on in a class a few years ago. I don't remember the class assignment, but I do remember that I had had fun working on it. The finished piece had been sitting on an easel in my shop one day when I was doing some woodworking and, as I remember, something slipped and a piece of wood went flying toward the canvas and tore a hole in it. 

It was still hanging around, so picked it up and thought I would work on it for the show. Originally, I had begun by painting the canvas... thinking of an underwater scene. 

A few weeks before I had been on a 'field trip' with my art group. We had gone with cameras in hand to a harbor. I was more fascinated with the 'stuff' lying around than with the boats.  Here are just a few of the photos I took that day.

I cut and pasted... and ended up with this scene! 

I love it that I could find a fish and fish eye in all that tangle!

But, now I had a gash in the canvas. I needed to repair and update...  I found the old photographs on my computer (how I love the search button!), and tried a few things. I was able to cover the ripped canvas with some chains. And then, just for fun, I cut out some bubbles and glued them on, too.

"Environmental Concerns"